Advent Again
by chezchuckles
Summary: A chapter a day. A holiday fic. Assume Season 5 spoilers.
1. Nov 30 - Ready to Start

**Advent Again**

* * *

_November 30 - Ready to Start_

* * *

He fumbles with his phone as it rings, shoves the bag of Chinese takeout under his arm as he answers.

"Kate?"

"Where are you, Castle?"

"Just getting home," he mutters, poking the call button to the elevator with his elbow. He tilts his neck back as he waits, side to side as it pops and cracks.

"Hm," she murmurs. "But you left before me."

"Yeah, I picked up some dinner. Too tired to think of something to cook, especially since it's just me tonight."

He hears her soft sigh on the other end and then the call drops. He glances at his phone, but yeah, she hung up. He didn't mean that as a sleight, he just meant she wasn't coming home with him so. . .

Yeah. Whatever.

He hasn't been able to figure her out lately. Things were going well, smoothly, a few fights of course, that big one about her mother's case at the end of spring, but when did they not fight? It's been better than ever since then. He thought.

Whatever. _A night alone, Castle._ Fine.

He steps on the elevator and pushes his floor button, then slides his phone back inside the pocket of his suit jacket. He's got a headache behind his eyes that pulses and the day has been bitterly cold. He's not ready for bitterly cold.

And Alexis never called. She said - but yeah, she's a college freshman and having fun and Kate told him to lay off.

He's trying.

Castle sighs as the elevator doors open and he strides off, down the hall towards his door, watching the keys in his hand as he sifts through them one at a time. He's forgotten what this new one looks like, was it-

"Castle."

He jerks to a stop and glances up to see Kate Beckett sitting on the floor outside his door, a smile of chagrin on her face, her eyes tender and a little uncertain on his.

"Kate. Why are you sitting on the floor?"

She's standing up now though, and beside her is a huge thing shrouded in a drop cloth and resting beside his door. He frowns and drops the bag of Chinese food next to it so he can wrap her in a quick embrace, the strong edges of her body against his. He kinda needs it. He's an idiot.

She hums, her fingers curl at his biceps before letting him go. "You change your locks again, Castle?"

He feels the heat climb his cheeks and he glances down at his key ring again. And there it is, the too-shiny silver key. The new one.

"Castle," she sighs, taking the keys from him and shoving the right one in the lock. "Second time this month."

"Third," he admits.

She turns back to him and the twist of pain - for him - in her eyes makes him sigh.

"Were you going to give me a copy?"

"Of course. I just did it the other day, and I couldn't find a good time." And he was - ashamed of it. "Forgot. I - I forgot."

She nudges open the door and gestures him inside his own home; as always, he has that flash of irrational panic before it slides away like it was never there.

Tyson is dead. Tyson is gone.

It's getting better.

She's got a grip on his elbow in compassion, and it's so close to pity that he switches the subject. "So what is that thing?" He nods to the huge dropcloth-covered thing.

Her mouth twitches into a half-smile but she also looks nervous as she stands in the doorway. "You got enough Chinese for both of us?"

He grins back. "Yeah. You coming in?"

She nods and gently pushes on his hip, nudging him inside, away from that tantalizing and monstrous thing outside his door. "I'll set this up, you get us plates and wine."

Set up?

Wait. What is today?

"Oh," he breathes out, turns startled eyes to hers. "Advent."

She grins this time, a soft and beautiful thing that makes him strong, makes him feel powerful and loved and _special_, because she's doing it for him. She wants to show him, just like he wanted to show her.

"Advent," she agrees. "And you almost ruined it by changing the locks on me, Castle."

He laughs at that, glad he can laugh, that she can too, and presses a kiss to her smiling mouth.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet."

* * *

He's so antsy. He can barely sit still.

She grins into her wine and sits back against the couch, watches Castle sneak little looks to the still-covered Advent calendar sitting on his dining room table. He's been less himself since Tyson, since she had to arrest him, and it's been hard for her to not see that broken, scared little boy in his face every time he stutters to a halt in his own living room.

But now.

This is so much better. They've needed this - some holiday magic. He gave it to her last year, and he completely - wow, he completely remade her and their relationship. So.

It's the least she can do. She just hopes it goes like she's planned.

As it is, he looks so excited. He inhaled his own dinner, and he's trying to wait patiently for her to finish her plate, but he keeps fidgeting, refills his wine, goes the long way around the couch to take quick looks at the cloth-draped calendar. He comes back with a paper towel to clean up the food he spilled and she takes pity on him.

"Okay, Castle," she sighs, rolling her eyes at him and standing up. She gestures for him to rise as well and he pops right up, grinning, his hands gripping her waist and a kiss landing hard on her mouth before he heads straight for his dining room table.

"Can I take the cloth off?"

"Sure. Have at it," she laughs.

He at least waits until she's beside him; he takes her hand in his and uses his left to whisk off the cover.

The tight grip of his fingers around hers lets her know; the sucked in breath, the stillness. She turns her head to look at him, absorbs the beautiful joy that radiates from him like sunbeams.

"It's the same one," he murmurs, tearing his eyes from it to look at her. "It's-"

"-ours." She lifts an eyebrow to give it emphasis, but presses her lips together to keep from being too heavy-handed with it. _Day by day, Kate._

The beautiful Advent calendar he filled up for her last year is the same one she used for him, the flat canvas with it's three-dimensional row of apartment buildings in pale grey and white. Each numbered window opens and a gift rests in the hollowed out space behind.

She's never been so nervous over a Christmas gift in her life.

"I asked you," Castle says suddenly. "I asked you back in August-"

She grins and briefly presses her forehead into his shoulder. "Mm, I told you that you couldn't have it."

"I thought you'd - I don't know. I thought-"

"That I got _rid_ of it?" she gasps, straightening up to look at him.

"No, no," he hurriedly assures her. "But I figured you obviously knew why I was asking, and that you didn't want me to do it this year. You didn't want the. . .fuss."

"I _didn't_ want you to do it," she laughs, a silly giggle of relief somewhere in the back of her throat. She's got her shoes off, so she has to go up on tiptoe, but she kisses his cheek, moves to his mouth for a long moment, letting the heat build slowly, the stroke of his tongue like red velvet. When they pause, breaths close together, she opens her eyes to him.

"When do I get to open it?" he murmurs, his fingers skimming her cheek and tangling in her hair.

"Tomorrow, Castle." She shakes her head at him, drops back flat-footed. "You know how this works."

"I do. I know."

But he's excited. And she's so glad to see it again.

* * *

**A/N: **This is an Advent Calendar fic - which means every day a new chapter will be posted (the time of day will undoubtedly vary). Please check my tumblr (writingwell . tumblr . com) for links to songs and images associated with each day. Also, the playlist is currently available on my utube channel: chezchuckles.

**Advent Again** follows a year after the events of **Advent** (a story I posted last year). It's not entirely necessary to have read it, but it would probably be a good idea. Assume that all the cases and episodes we've seen in the intervening year have happened, but with the added relationship.

**Happy Holidays** to all the fans. This is my way of saying thank you for everything. Everything.


	2. Dec 1 - Love's a Mystery

_December 1 - Love's a Mystery_

* * *

"It's midnight," he whispers loudly, the rasp waking her immediately.

She's on her stomach in his bed, and Castle is leaning over her, his chest pressed to her back, a lovely warmth in the chill of his room. But already he's moving off, wriggling out of bed, and she _just_ fell asleep.

"Castle," she groans. "What are you doing?"

"It's midnight. December 1st. Come on, Kate."

He's suddenly at her side of the bed, dragging his robe over his shoulders even as he's reaching for her. She grunts when he practically hauls her up, and she shivers in the cold, curling closer to him.

"But I'm freezing."

"Problem solved." He snags a sweatshirt for her, so she shrugs into it with a growl, feels his fingers straightening, trying to help.

"I got it, I got it," she mutters, pushing the sleeves up.

"I wanna go open day one," he says, his hand in a fist in her sweatshirt and pulling her after him.

"I'm tired," she grumbles, but it's totally half-hearted and her body's waking up, the anxious eagerness welling up in her now, making her feet trip as he hurries them through the door.

Here they go.

"I know, but you were barely asleep. Come on." He leads her by the hand through his living room, making straight for the dining room table and that massive Advent calendar.

It was heavy to carry, yes, but it was mostly awkward, and she took a cab, and then his door man insisted on helping her into the elevator. She didn't mean to spend the night, to stay with him at all; she wanted to sneak in and leave it on the table as a surprise, let him be excited all on his own, maybe take a couple giddy phone calls from him, but stay well clear of the fallout.

She wanted to come by Saturday morning and open his door and see if he was already up, see if he was surprised, let him have his reaction in private and then-

But this is cute - Castle dragging her out of his bed at midnight so he can open the first window.

"You did the same!"

She wakes with a start, realizes she's completely missed it, dozing as she stood here, daydreaming a little maybe too, and meanwhile Castle has opened up the window marked with a one.

"I did the same," she says with a slow grin. "Sort of."

"It's a playlist?" he asks, holding up the metallic green USB drive. She still has the silver one he gave her; it was on her corkboard above her computer until recently.

"Yeah, it's a playlist. You know how it works - a song a day."

He curls his fingers around it and steps into her, slides his arms low around her waist, grinning that goofy and brilliant smile that makes her stomach flip; he pulls her in against him with an eyebrow-wiggling leer.

She rolls her eyes at that but leans in to press her cheek to his collarbone and her forehead into his neck, letting him embrace her tightly. After a moment of just soaking in his vibrating excitement, she lifts her head and kisses the underside of his jaw.

"There's something else. Did you not see it?"

"What?" he breathes, and the nine year old is back, all brimming and eager and squeezing her too hard. "What else?"

"I'm not telling. Go look."

He immediately abandons her, ducking to look inside the first window, and he practically yelps as he sees it, sticks his fingers inside to unfurl a 3x5 photo.

"What. . .what is it?" he says, turning to look at her, his brow furrowed.

"A clue," she grins, has to press her lips together at the flash of shock and pure _arousal_ that washes over his face.

His voice husks. "A clue?"

"Go listen to your song, Castle. Then I'll explain."

He takes one last look at the photo - really it's entirely unhelpful to him at this point. It's just a close-up shot - could be decorative, badly weathered, squared off, in full sunlight. It tells him nothing.

"The song, Castle."

Castle leans in to hurriedly press a kiss to her cheek before running for his study. Kate huffs out a breath, watches him go. She wrote up the instructions in a Read Me file and added it to the flash drive. It's not clever or sexy, but it will get the job done.

Hopefully.

Kate goes to the kitchen and gets down a couple mugs, starts messing with his coffee maker. It's complicated, and it's on a timer set for later this morning (though midnight is hardly morning at all). Or the timer should be set - she can't quite tell. She can never figure out this stupid thing when she's over here. It's like the espresso machine in the break room - she knows in theory how it works, but she never gets it right.

Kate stands there studying it, tapping her fingers on the counter, but it doesn't even look alive, let alone can she figure out how to stop the timer and make it start right _now_.

Maybe she can. . .mess with it? If she presses this button, maybe it-

Arg. No. Still not awake. She has no idea.

And it's stupid, standing here in front of the coffeemaker, but she can't follow him into his study and see his face as he reads, listens, starts this thing.

Jeez, she's got to get it together.

Kate grabs a pan, pulls eggs out of his fridge. Judging by his excitement level, she's gonna need a midnight snack to keep her awake for a while longer. Maybe it's a good thing she can't figure out the coffeemaker, because she really needs to sleep after this, even if he doesn't. It's been a long, anxious week trying to get the Advent thing finished.

She turns on the stovetop and the pan clatters out of her fingers and onto the burner. She sighs and rubs her forehead, scrapes her hair back as she turns to the eggs. She opens the carton and stares down at them. Two missing. When did that happen?

Staring at the laborious task in front of her, the effort of eggs and milk and salt and butter, she quits.

She's too tired for this. Screw it. What she wants to do is crawl back into bed and hide, but that's ridiculous.

Kate turns off the stove and puts the pan back, opens the fridge to stick the eggs inside. Coffee. If she could just make some coffee, it would give her hands something to do, and then there's the added benefit of being able to hand him a mug and see him smile at her for it. For that at least. In case-

She turns back to his coffee maker and pauses.

Right.

This is Castle's kitchen; this is his stupid, fancy coffee maker that she can never get to work.

This is why. This is why she doesn't-

Kate sighs and slumps to the counter with her head in her hands.

She's nervous.

This is really ridiculous, this is stupid, and she's not usually one to let it get to her, but this is a big, huge, massive deal and he doesn't even know. He's just opening day one like-

Kate sucks in a breath and stands up straighter. She can do this. She did this last year, and he knew - he knew exactly what he was doing to her, to them; he knew. She knows too, even if he doesn't. It's only the first day.

Suddenly arms are around her waist, his chest against her back, warming her up, melting her down. Castle drops his mouth to her neck and worships, that erotic humming he has when he wants her and he can't even speak, his hands stroking at her ribs.

Kate turns around slowly to meet him, nudges his nose with hers as he envelops her, feels his excitement in the quick press of his hips, the random trail of his mouth.

"Did you listen-"

"Love's a mystery?" he murmurs back, a little laugh caught in the scant space between them. "I get it. So - I'll have a photo that's like one piece of a larger picture. It's a puzzle and I get to put the pieces together every day?"

"Yeah," she grins. "Well, only 15 days have a photo clue, the other days are just - um. Fun?"

He's still grinning, she can taste it as his lips slant over hers, still wide, his tongue touching the seam of her mouth, breaking off to look at her again.

"This is so cool. You're giving me a mystery for my Christmas gift."

"Yeah," she breathes out, her chest easing at the delight on his face.

Okay, okay, this might not have been such a terrible idea.

This might be exactly right.

* * *

_Check out my tumblr (writingwell . tumblr . com) for the Advent Again Playlist, as well as the photo of the day (when applicable)._


	3. Dec 2 - I Made You a Present

_December 2 - I Made You a Present_

* * *

Castle scrubs at his face in the dim glow from the nightlight and then wipes his hands off on the towel, glancing in the bathroom mirror as he does. It's the first day in weeks that he hasn't immediately looked over his shoulder to see if that shadow in the reflection is Tyson.

He shuffles back out to his bedroom and glances over at a still sleeping Kate. She didn't say a thing yesterday about going back to her place; they've kinda stopped asking. They just - stay. Him at her place or her at his, they just stay.

He likes that a lot.

He climbs into bed and burrows down under the covers, keeps his eyes open and on Kate's back, the slope of her shoulder, and then suddenly she turns over.

"I get a call?" she murmurs, one eye open, her mouth parting on a sigh.

He smiles at her. "No, no call. Go back to sleep."

She hums and slides a little closer, her hand coming out to tangle in his tshirt. He covers her hand with his own, feels his eyes sinking shut at the warmth of her, the bed, just the two of them huddled against the morning.

* * *

Kate slips out of bed at eight, tugging a sweatshirt over her head to combat the chill as she moves for the bathroom. She washes her hands after, brushes her teeth, peers at the lines on her face in the mirror. More than there used to be; it's startling to see time draw its hand over her.

She gathers her hair back, loops a rubberband around it, then heads out to the kitchen for coffee.

It's already made, and perhaps the smell is what woke her this morning; she gets down a mug and pours carefully, popping her toes against the cold tile floor. Rotates her head on her neck, shrugs her shoulders to wake up.

Vanilla creamer is enough for Castle's rich brew, and she holds it against her chest, lets the warmth seep through the sweatshirt and down into her lungs. The morning is dull with clouds but when she brushes the tips of her fingers against the windowpane, the glass is warmer than she expected.

Just dreary. Cloud cover keeps in the warmth, but it isn't too appealing.

Kate sets her coffee mug on the window ledge, wide enough for a seat, and slinks back to the bedroom for her phone. The screen is lit up when she finds it on the bedside table, so she checks the alert even as she skims a hand down Castle's shoulder. He doesn't stir, and it's her father who called, so she goes back out to her coffee, calling him back.

"Hey Dad," she murmurs when he answers.

"Katie. That was quick. Just called you."

"Left my phone in the bedroom."

"Had your coffee yet?"

She smiles as she reaches her mug, wraps a hand around it. "Just poured it."

"Me too. It's a good day for ducks."

Kate shakes her head, swallows her too-hot first sip. "Duck hunting starts today?"

"It does. A couple of the guys have already gone out."

"Not you?"

"Not the snow geese," he says quietly. "I don't mind bagging a few ducks, but I can't shoot the geese too."

"Softie."

"They form long-term pair bonds," he answers, matter of fact, but it says all she needs to hear.

"They mate for life," Kate says, biting her lip and pressing her forehead to the window, closing her eyes.

"You over at Rick's or he at yours?"

Kate huffs a strangled laugh. "What a wonderfully awkward transition."

"Figure it's better than both of us matching this grey day. And you didn't answer the question."

"Fine, Counselor. I'm at his. Why'd you call?"

"I thought so. You sound different. Early morning, another person's presence warming the room."

"Dad. Back on track."

She hears her father chuckle, pleased with himself. "I just wanted to confirm the dates. You guys are coming, right?"

"We are," she says firmly. "But I don't know about Alexis."

"She knows she's welcome?"

"Of course. It's not that. It's still. . .strange for her."

"For you."

Kate winces, taps her fingers on her mug, slowly agrees. "Yes."

"Have to get used to it sometime."

"I know. I'm not opposed. Just. Going slow with her. But I think we've decided the 15th? And then stay through that Monday. Is that too early?"

"No, no, just fine. You know me."

Yeah, she does. The further they are from the actual end of December, the better he is. The better they both are. "Are you alone on New Year's, Dad?"

"No."

"You promise?"

"I promise. Duck hunting, remember?"

"If they go out for snow geese too, you call me."

"I'm sure you and Rick have-"

"Dad. Call me." New Year's will be - wow, it's going to be busy, and probably crazy, and they'll need to be in the city, but-

Her father. Who can't bear to hunt for snow geese.

"It'll be duck, Katie."

Let's pray for duck, she thinks.

"Finish your coffee," her father admonishes. "Stop fussing over me. When'd you turn into a fusser? Go wake up Rick and fuss over him."

Kate bites off a laugh and winces at the way that _sounds, Dad, ew_, and he must catch on, because she can practically hear him blushing as he clears his throat.

"Ah."

"Drink your own coffee," she says back. "And we'll see you in a couple weeks."

Kate ends the call before he can say good-bye, lays her phone on the window ledge. She pulls her knees up and rests her coffee mug on top, tilting it precariously to sip at the warm liquid. With the window at her shoulder, she can see bits and pieces of the New York City skyline, the grey day brooding over her home.

Suddenly the sweatshirt, the coffee aren't enough.

Time to wake up Castle, share the morning gloom with him, and the warmth.

* * *

He laughs and pushes on her shoulder as she wriggles her way onto the couch with him, remote in her hand. "Really?" he groans. "_Charlie Brown Christmas_ again?"

"You were the one who recorded it."

"Because you told me too. I didn't know you were going to watch it fifty times in one day," he moans, but he's wrapping an arm around her waist as she leans back against his chest. "Seriously, Beckett. You have an unhealthy obsession with this movie."

"You like it," she says back, digging her elbow into his ribs. He's not sure if she means he likes the movie or he likes her, but both are applicable. He's got a thing for cheesy Christmas movies. After this, he's making her watch _Elf_ at least twice.

_(Santa! I know him!)_

Heh. And then maybe _Home Alone_? One of Alexis's favorites.

Kate points the remote at the DVR and grabs another pretzel M&M from the bag nestled between them. The movie starts again and she closes her free hand around his fist that rests at her stomach. She rubs at the side of his palm, her fingers dancing along his.

He glances down, squeezes at the foam football she left behind the window for today's gift. Her fingers squeeze around his as well, and he realizes she's doing it on purpose, drawing his attention to it.

Honestly, he has no idea why she's left him a stress-football, a squeeze thing that was stuffed inside day two.

Her fingers play over his, light and pleasant, distracting him entirely from the movie's third run-through this afternoon. She strokes up and down his index finger, erotic, and then her body turns into his, a smirk on her lips.

"Castle, how long you gonna wait to ask me?"

He lifts an eyebrow in feigned ignorance and she laughs.

"The football. I _know_ you have no idea."

"I've just been. . .waiting to uh, well. No, I have no idea."

She's grinning so wide, proud of herself, and he shakes his head, opens his fist to reveal the brown squishy football. He's been carrying it around, actually using it like a stress ball, and it's been nice and everything but-

"Castle. Do you remember what you gave me on December 2nd last year?"

Uh. Um.

"The Charlie Brown tree," she murmurs, biting her bottom lip as her smile threatens to stretch right off her face.

"Oh yeah, you put it on your desk," he laughs. "I remember now. And, oh, okay, we're watching _Charlie Brown Christmas_ because-"

He stumbles to a stop, arrested by the sight of what has to be a Charlie Brown football in his hand. He knows now, but she's already started to explain.

"Lucy does it to him every time. Every time, Castle. She promises Charlie Brown that she'll hold that football and let him kick it-"

"But she pulls back."

Kate presses her lips together and a shadow slips across her face, sunlight behind a cloud. He tightens his arm around her waist and she rouses, gives him a faint smile before she continues.

"Still. He keeps trying. Every time. And yeah, he knows, he's got to know she's going to yank that football back. But he has such hope, Castle. Today will be the day. He never gives up hope."

He shifts his hand up to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the knot of her hair, his chest filled with it. "Today's gift - you gave me hope."

Her face grows calm, peace settling in her eyes, and he can't help but lean forward, touch his mouth to hers, lips brushing, the warmth of her breath against him.

"Hey, Charlie," she murmurs into his kiss.

He laughs a little and strokes the side of her face with two fingers. "Hey. But you know what? You're much sexier than Lucy."

She frames his face with her hands, eyes brilliant and dark and beautiful on his, kisses him again.

She gave him hope.


	4. Dec 3 - I have finally realized

_December 3 - I have finally realized: I need your love_

* * *

Castle wakes up and stretches in bed, whines as he yawns, chuckles to himself for no real good reason - just kinda tickled. Pleased. Maybe he was dreaming.

Kate. Just. . .Kate.

He grins and checks the alarm clock - she's probably already at work, but she hasn't called with a body so he'll take his time, roll in around nine or so. His usual.

He probably should shower and dress, be respectable first, but no. He wants to see the Advent calendar, see what else is in there.

Castle slides out of bed and hisses at the cold floors, heads for the dining room as he yawns again. He finds his sweatshirt thrown over the couch and snatches it up, tugs it over his head. Coffee would be good too.

His phone is. . .where? Huh, maybe-

Oh, here we go.

Castle muffles another yawn as he calls up the playlist, starts today's song. He turns up the volume and sticks it on the kitchen counter as he pulls the carafe from coffeemaker. The low beat thrums through the loft and he finally takes a long, first sip from his mug.

Ahhh.

Oh, it's a Muse song. Cool.

Castle's fingers fumble through an air guitar rendition, thump on the counter in rhythm. He takes another long swallow of coffee and his eyes catch the three-dimensional Advent calendar like he's been purposefully not letting himself look.

Which is exactly what he's been doing. Because now that he sees it, he can't do anything but want it.

Advent.

Castle grins and shuffles over to the dining room table. He crooks his finger in the casement and tugs the window open.

Nothing?

Oh, wait.

Castle ducks his head and sees the glint of flat plastic, scrapes his nail across it to bring it forward. A guitar pick. She's giving him a guitar pick?

Huh.

It's cool though - bright red with a black thumbprint on the fat end. He flips it over and sees she's written two words: _Game on._

Ga-

Whoa. Wait. Game on? She _hates_ playing Guitar Hero with him. She-

Muse. Oh no. She's gonna kick his butt at 'Knights of Cydonia', isn't she?

* * *

Kate startles when arms wrap around her waist, but in the next instant she smells coffee.

Doesn't excuse the ambush hug. "Castle."

"Guitar Hero? Really?" His mouth presses a quick kiss to the spot behind her ear. "Can it be a marathon?"

She rolls her eyes and turns into his embrace, glances around the break room, but they're alone. She leans in and brushes a soft kiss to his mouth. "Yeah. Guitar Hero marathon, Castle. Merry Christmas."

He laughs at her, fingers squeezing her hip, and crowds in closer to give her a tight, celebratory embrace. She has to hold her coffee away from him to keep it out of the path of his happy destruction, patting his cheek when he nudges into her, kissing her again.

His smile makes it sloppy, and she pushes him away. "Okay, Castle. Let me drink my coffee. You sticking around?"

"Nope. Can't. Gotta practice."

"No way," she laughs. "That's cheating."

"I haven't played that game in ages, Kate. I gotta make sure I can still bring it."

She lets her eyes flick to his mouth and drag back up to meet his gaze. "Oh, you bring it, Castle. No need to worry."

He huffs at her, a startled eyebrow up and his fingers tugging her closer.

"Not-uh, Romeo. I've got a Monday's worth of work waiting on me." She can't help the stupid smile that teases her lips, but she pushes him away again. "And no help from you, apparently."

He shrugs with that little boy look, but he lets her go. "When are you coming over?"

"Soon as I get done. You gonna make me dinner?"

"Does ice cream count as dinner?"

Kate wrinkles her nose and sidesteps him as she presses her coffee cup to her chest, leading him out. "Real dinner, Castle. Make Guitar Hero worth my while."

* * *

"You've been practicing!"

Kate can't even hide the smirk, but she keeps her eyes on the game, focuses intently on the movement of the colored notes up the screen, fingers flying.

"When?" he grunts. "When did you have time for this? This is crazy."

She doesn't reply - she can't really - she has to maintain her concentration. It's _hard._

"Come on. This is ridiculous. How long? How long have you been practicing Guitar Hero without me?"

"Oh, poor baby. I bet you spent two months after it came out playing in your pajamas."

"In my shades, dress shirt and underwear, actually."

"Your. . ." She takes her eyes off the screen for just an instant and she hears the missed notes, jerks her head back to the game. "Your sunglasses and underwear?"

"You know. _Like Risky Business_."

Kate laughs explosively, just picturing Castle in his white socks and dress shirt, eyes hidden behind his shades, the pale flesh of his thighs flashing-

"Whoa. Suddenly you're terrible."

Kate growls and tries to pull her mind back, but then Castle is crowding into her, breathing hotly on her neck. She stumbles through a series of three, the colors across the fret board, and hears Castle hum in devious pleasure.

Uh-oh.

His fingers shiver up the inside of her arm even as her own work frantically at the colored buttons of the guitar, but it's hard. Difficult. It's so difficult when his mouth is skimming her neck, his heat making her chest flush.

On the game, the crowd is starting to hiss at her, natives getting restless because she keeps missing notes.

"You ever try this song on Expert?" he murmurs. "Cause I know those fingers. Strong. Nimble. So very-"

"You have to stop," she croaks. "Not fair. It's not-"

His mouth attaches to her earlobe, sucks.

Her knees tremble and Castle is sliding his arm around her waist, as if he's helping her, but it's worse - it only makes it worse-

And then she's not just missing, but totally punching the wrong colors, hitting green instead of red, not able to reach the orange, and she can't even follow the thing, and now the song is falling apart and the crowd is outright booing her and-

Castle crows in her ear. "Fail! You lose."

Kate elbows him hard and spins around, poking his chest. "You cheated."

"You did first. Practicing ahead of time."

"You did the same thing _all morning_, Castle."

"You're just mad because you lost."

"No. Not-uh. Rematch." She spins away from him and strums the guitar, restarts the song.

"You're on," he says, but unloops the strap from her neck and takes the guitar out of her hands. "But my turn first."

He's right. She _has_ been practicing. And she is gonna mop the floor with him.

* * *

They shoved the coffee table out of the way, pushed the leather couch under the window, had to remove the chairs to the living room. His desk Castle nudged to the other side.

"We need room."

"Only because you dance around when you play," she mutters.

"Fine. I need room. Now-" He makes a shooing gesture with both hands.

"Am I dismissed?" she says archly.

"For now. I need total silence so I can concentrate."

She narrows her eyes at him and stalks closer. One finger comes out to the body of his guitar and presses down, the strap pulling against his neck. He winces and gives her a lame smile, all _heh, you wouldn't_ and appeasement in his eyes.

"You're trying to quit while you're ahead," she accuses.

"No, I'm not."

Oh yeah, he totally is. Look at that - he can't help but smirk. She growls. "That's cheating. We're playing until I win this thing back."

"You should just. . .go eat the dinner I made you," he says finally. "I'm going to switch to World Tour and play 'Hotel California' and it takes ages. Then we can switch back and battle it out."

Kate crosses her arms over her chest, but her stomach is growling and three hours of Guitar Hero III is really just too much. She needs a break.

But she's not about to let him know that.

"Come on," he cajoles, wriggling closer even with the guitar between them, his hands coming to her hips, eyes so very blue on hers. "Just eat a few minutes, Kate, and you'll be all energized and ready to come back strong. Let me have six minutes and eight seconds to play."

"Alone."

He pulls out the wrinkled brow, the sad eyes, even the crease to his bottom lip, and she gives in, turns for the living room.

"Fine. Have your six minutes to play in peace. But I'm coming back. And when I do. . .you're going down."

She escapes to the kitchen, grinning to herself, about ready to die of starvation.

This night is working out so well.

* * *

Castle yelps when she slaps him. "Woman."

"Stop messing me up."

"Competitive much?"

"Surely you didn't think I was going to let you win."

"Let me?" he gasps.

"Stop talking. Stop distracting me. Go get us some dessert."

He grumbles, but leaves her to head to the kitchen.

* * *

She's the one who starts singing along to the ones she knows. He's not expecting it, just picking out the notes while he plays Weezer's 'My Name is Jonas', and then suddenly she's bouncing a little on her toes and softly singing. She knows every word.

_thanks for all you've shown us; this is how we feel._

He doesn't dare open his mouth and comment, wouldn't even dream of teasing her, because even after a year of doing this, being together, some things are still so intimate, so personal, that when he's given a view of her private stuff, he can't speak.

She's just really enjoying the song, and he's enjoying her.

And when his favorite part comes around, and she's still on her toes in time to the beat, her eyes on the screen and watching him play, he can't help half-singing the words under his breath:

_the workers are going home, yeah, yeah, yeah-_

Kate turns her head and flashes him a grin, and that does it, that ruins him. He misses every note after that because he has to frame that beautiful, smiling, joyful face with his hands and press his mouth to it, taste her.

She's amazing.

* * *

"It's so late," she groans. "It's so very late. On a school night, Castle."

"One more. One more, please, please please. We can both play."

Kate wrinkles her nose, glances again at her watch. "Okay. One more."

"Yes!" he crows, doing a dramatic spin in his socks on the wood floor. She laughs and rubs a hand through her hair, trying to wake herself up.

"You pick the song," she nudges, carefully holding her guitar up so she can move in closer to his side. Castle is already scanning through the set list, vacillating over some, coming back to others, obviously trying to make it a good one.

She tilts her head against his shoulder and yawns, watching him move through the songs, blinking slowly. As far as mastery goes, they're pretty much even, though on some, Castle was playing at Expert level, so his percentages weren't as good as hers on Hard.

And then a song she almost picked for his Advent playlist scrolls by and she stiffens. "That one. Let's do that one."

"Rolling Stones?" he asks, turning his head to her.

She nods. "Yeah. Please." She knows she's faintly blushing, her heart beating too hard. It will only mean something to her - he'll never get it - but it would be. . .

Special. Because it's part of the whole thing, part of what she's trying to show him, even though this song is rather oblique and it would never mean to him what it means to her.

A red door.

"All right then. Here we go. Rolling Stones 'Paint It Black.'"

And even though they apparently are both too tired to hit all the guitar notes, they both know all the words.

_I see a red door and I want to paint it black._

* * *

Castle crawls into bed behind her and his elbow buckles, sending him flat on his face. Kate snorts a laugh and pushes at him with her knee, her eyes already closing.

"Someone's tired," she mumbles.

"But so much fun." He cups his hand behind her thigh and settles on his back, yawning again.

She hums and draws her arm around his ribs, her mouth landing at his shoulder in what he guesses was supposed to be a kiss. Castle grins to himself and half turns towards her, raising his hand between them to stroke her cheek.

She opens her eyes, blinking, a question unspoken.

"Kate."

"Yeah."

"You rock."

* * *

**A/N:** _I have not seen Christmas Castle, obviously, so let's assume that doesn't happen December 3rd. I reserve the right to incorporate it later, if it turns out to be important to the emotional trajectory of my AU version of Beckett and Castle._


	5. Dec 4 - Right where I belong

_December 4 - For once, I get the feeling that I'm right where I belong_

* * *

"Caaaastle."

He winces and opens his eyes, blinks hard as he looks at her hovering over him. "Huh?"

"You coming with me, or sleeping in?"

"Sleep. Lemme sleep," he grunts and rolls over.

He feels her fingers brush the nape of his neck, and then her lips seal a kiss at his shoulder. Both tug on his consciousness. Or his conscience.

"Sleep, then. Call you later-"

"No, no," he groans. "I'm up. I have a meeting for that charity thing anyway."

He's up. He can do this.

* * *

"Again?" he mutters, shaking the empty carton of orange juice. And two eggs gone from the - oh wait, no. He made an egg sandwich yesterday when he was waiting for her. Whew. Good. Okay.

But the orange juice?

Alexis wasn't at the loft all weekend or Monday. Or last week.

On a sudden whim, he opens the freezer door, yanks out the Chunky Monkey, pries off the lid-

"Castle," she laughs. "You can't feed me ice cream for breakfast."

He glances up from the three-quarters empty container, staring at Kate as she comes into the kitchen in just her pants and bra. He ruthlessly suppresses the impulse to cover her up, close the blinds, draw the curtains.

He gives a falsely cheerful laugh, tries smiling at her. "I guess Tyson ate the ice cream and finished off the orange juice. . . .again."

"Castle." She stands stock still in the middle of his kitchen, staring at him. "Castle. We ate it together. Last night. Guitar Hero marathon."

Oh. Oh, yeah, they did. Consolation for his loss. Near-loss. Tie?

Okay. Good. Just-

"Rick."

He nods, slowly pushes the lid back on, replaces the container in the freezer once more. "Just a joke," he says lamely. "Just making a joke."

"Castle," she sighs but doesn't push it. "Fine. Tell me where you threw my sweater last night so I can finally get out of here."

He grins, a flicker of memory and anticipation both. "In the laundry room."

"You dried my sweater?" she gasps, pushing past him. "Castle!"

"No! I live with women - did live with - whatever. I know better than to dry things without asking. It's just hanging up in there."

She stops and turns back to him slowly, relief flickering across her eyes. "Oh, good. Thank you. I only have thirty minutes before I have to leave."

"Can I help you with your sweater?" he says, giving her a slow smile.

"You wouldn't be helping, Castle, if you're mostly trying to take my pants off."

"I think that's a big help."

"I have work. _You_ have work. So hurry up and make me breakfast."

He grins even wider, resumes breakfast at the counter. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

They had such a nice, homey weekend, and then so much _fun _last night that it's worn him out. So when Kate left for work, he crawled back into bed and now he's luxuriating in his obscenely soft sheets which - _mmm_ - smell like her.

It's not that he's afraid to get up and start his day. Alone. Kate was here this morning and she does a lot to banish that sense of echoing strangeness. He just sometimes has these moments where not knowing what's around the corner causes his steps to falter, where the dimness of his study and the lack of light in his living room give him pause.

It's his own loft. His own _home_. But-

Kate says it takes time. After her place was bombed, even when she was sleeping in the guest room of his loft, she still woke up tense, halfway ready to jump in the bathtub. She says it will fade; he'll be fine.

He is fine. She's right. Tyson is dead; it's over.

Still not getting up. Maybe today will be a stay in bed day. He deserves one. Of course, he's itching to write. Wanted to write all weekend, but wanted her more. And then last night was the ultimate of video game experiences.

Maybe he can cancel that charity meeting. Is it all that necessary? He really could stay in bed today. He's rich; he can afford it. And it was just a preliminary thing about donations during the holidays. He doesn't even have to be there. Not really.

But he does want to listen to his song. She's been so flustered about the songs - _this was harder than I thought, so some are sort of wintery but I don't know Castle, shut up, just listen_.

They say something about her, if he can figure it out.

He rolls over and snags his phone, calls up his playlist. When Kate listened to the one he made for her, she didn't download the song until the day of, but he can't do that. He likes seeing the tracks lined up waiting for him; it heightens the anticipation.

He starts to play today's song and turns up the volume, leaves it on the bedside table as he lies back in bed and closes his eyes.

The sound washes around him, fills up the empty space of his loft. Makes the place feel lived in again, energetic, alive.

_I wanna feel with the season. . ._

* * *

When she calls him, he yawns widely as he answers.

She's laughing. "Hey there. Boring, normal cases. How was your meeting?"

"Ohh, I kinda ditched it. I got an idea last night and I need to write a couple scenes," he says, finally dragging himself out of bed.

"You went back to bed, you punk."

He laughs, stumbles against the bedside table. "Yeah. I did."

"You just now getting up?"

"Yeah."

"Lazybones."

"You wore me out, Beckett."

He gets a laugh for that. "Take your time then. Want to be sure you're well-rested for tonight."

"Promises, promises."

She makes some kind of sound in agreement and he hears a hesitation in her voice. "Hey, so you haven't. . .opened up today's window?"

"Nope. I'm saving it. Relishing the moment."

She sighs and he grins to himself; she's almost more antsy and excited about the Advent calendar than he is.

"Fine, relish away. I'll just be here. Doing real work."

"Go catch a killer, Beckett. I gotta murder someone." He pauses, a flash of horror supplanting his offhand tease. "A fictional someone. Not a real some-"

"Castle," she laughs. "I know. Go write your scenes."

She ends the call so he heads for his bathroom, but he still has that lingering sense of taboo for joking about him murdering people.

He _did_ just get arrested for murder. By Kate.

Maybe too soon.

* * *

When he opens the little casement window, the song is on repeat echoing in the loft because he's trying to figure out what she's saying with these lyrics, and he peers into the space-

Oh, hell no.

She didn't.

Guess it's not too soon.

* * *

Kate has to struggle not to laugh when he comes through the bullpen and heads straight for her desk. He's forgotten her coffee, but she can let that go today; it is late anyway. He's adorably wide-eyed, and wearing that gorgeous blue shirt she likes.

She tilts her chair towards him as he comes for her, carefully folds her hands in her lap as she watches him.

He stands over her desk, hands fisted, his eyes raking her over, and then he drops down heavily to his own chair, leans in like he has a secret.

"Beckett," he whispers.

She keeps her lips pressed together so he won't see her smile.

"I can't believe you're _joking_ about it," he complains, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the gloves.

Blue CSU gloves.

She left them in today's window.

"Just wanted to be sure you have a pair. No more accidental fingerprints."

"That was a bold move, Kate Beckett." He arches an eyebrow at her and drops the gloves onto her desk. "Bold, bold move."

She bites her bottom lip and smirks at him. "I got some more bold moves. Wanna see?"

"Yes, yes, I do. Can I bust you out?"

"You seem awfully good at that," she grins. It's only slightly forced - only slightly.

And then she sees it. His face splits, his mouth widening into that beautiful, infectious grin that lights his eyes and squeezes his cheeks.

It's working. The whole Advent calendar - it's working.


	6. Dec 5 - Lacy things

_December 5 - Lacy Things_

* * *

Kate meets him over a dead body this morning, and his lips are smirking so hard he can barely contain it.

"Watch where you're stepping, Castle," Lanie snorts from the ground.

Castle _oops_ his way back, stepping out of the area and a little behind Kate. She feels his hand drift to her waist and then away again. She knows he's opened the advent calendar for today.

Central Park is cold this morning, and Kate presses her arms against her sides as she waits for the ME to give her unofficial report.

"That my coffee?" she nods.

Castle jerks forward to give her the cup. "Yes, yeah. It is." His eyes are still that breathless, giddy blue, and he can't seem to stop from trying to _touch_ her.

Kate sips at her coffee, lets her bottom lip take the brunt of the too-hot liquid before she can swallow it down. Castle is still watching her.

"Lanie," Kate prompts.

"All right. Cause of death is - unofficially - drowning." Lanie shines a flashlight into the open eyes of the dead man, creating a glare from Kate's angle, but evidently showing the ME something. "I'm seeing petechial hemorrhaging. Plus the clothes are stiff, smell of water and frost."

"Drowning," Beckett answers, nodding once. "Near here you think?"

There's the Pond and any other number of sources in Central Park. Lanie gives her a look and Kate sighs. Sometimes it would be nice if it were simple.

"Okay. I'll have CSU get samples of the Pond, other places near here." Beckett takes another sip of coffee then hands it back to Castle, her fingers flexing in her blue crime scene gloves. She steps closer to the body and squats down, noting the expensive suit, the watch, and still-

She can feel Castle hovering behind her.

Kate glances back at her notes, scans the baseball fields, the wide open space, the treeline, then stands up again.

"Ryan."

"Yeah, boss."

"If he was drowned, his killer had to transport him here. Take a team and search the area for tire tracks, get in touch with the Park Service guys and see if their trucks are accounted for. The usual."

"Got it."

Beckett finally turns her eyes to Castle and he's practically vibrating with excitement. "Castle."

"Yeah?"

"You're with me."

* * *

He gets his chance in her car, pulls the scrap of black lace from his coat pocket.

"Castle," she gasps, her laugh choked somewhere in her throat. "You brought them with you?"

Black lace panties. He spreads them out on his knee, tracing the flat pad of his finger over the lace, the rough edge arousing. He's had tantalizing visions all morning, especially when she bent down-

Ah. Crime scene spoils all the fun.

He lifts his eyes to her, sees her biting her lip, the beautiful profile of her face. "You trying to tell me you'd like to see these on me?"

She stumbles on a laugh, casts her eyes quickly to him. "No, I'm telling you, would you like to see them on _me_?"

He opens his mouth, hardly able to get the words out around the crazy, goofy grin spreading his face. "Just wondering. After today's song."

She presses her lips together, but it's still that pleased smile in the lines of her mouth. "It just matched."

"You have matching-"

"Actually, I do," she laughs. Her hand comes across the console, snags the underwear, and then shoves it back down into his pocket. "These are for later."

The delicious feeling of her fingers in his pocket sends tendrils of warmth out through his thigh, his chest. "You wearing the match right now?"

"For me to know," she murmurs, her voice low. And does he dare believe? Sultry?

"And when do I get to find out?"

Even though she's clutching the steering wheel, the look she gives him in that instant is so hot, so amazingly sexy, that it's like she's got both hands on him.

"Soon. You find out soon."

* * *

They are matching.


	7. Dec 6 - You Get What You Need

_December 6 - You Get What You Need_

* * *

His alarm wakes him.

Huh. No call from Kate.

Castle slaps it off and stumbles gracelessly out of bed, wincing when his back pops, his knee stiffens. He shuffles into the bathroom, mind drifting, washes his hands, and then it hits him.

Advent.

He practically breaks his neck racing for the dining room; he really needs to put that thing in his bedroom, right next to the bed so he can just lean over and-

Door number six. His heart is pounding, palms damp - this has been so much _fun_ and wow, wow, what is this?

There's the photo, another photo - keeping him off-balanced with that, so he never knows when to expect it. But it's rolled up around a key.

A key.

Huh.

He goes back to his study with the large, silver key in his hand, photo in the other, and wakes his laptop while he studies today's gift. His brain is slow, and when he starts the song for today, it's the Rolling Stones, that haunting choir-opening to 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', and he thinks-

the key to something he _needs_? (not something he wants? or-)

Her apartment?

But no, he has that. He's got that key, and no matter how many times he off-handedly suggested and then outright begged her - Kate wouldn't change her locks. That would be something he wants, right? But he's already got the key to her apartment, and-

Oh jeez.

Oh wow. Last year at this time - and the gifts she's given him have mirrored his - and wait-

_No._

Really?

_Yes._

It's not a door key at all. It's-

Castle scrambles back for his bedroom, grabs his phone from the bedside table where it's charging, calls her. He's breathless as he waits for her to pick up, and he realizes suddenly that he's in boxers and a tshirt, his mouth tastes funny and he needs to brush his teeth and last year, last year, he _did this_, for her. He did this same thing for her and now she's doing it for him and oh jeez, he can't-

"Castle."

"Kate," he yelps, surprised by her voice cutting into his thoughts. "Today. Hey, wow, Kate. Is this a key to your motorcycle?"

She laughs, rich and low. "You bet."

"Oh my God."

First the underwear, and now this.

* * *

When he finally arrives, it's all she can do to sit at her desk and not go meet him, the way he's staring hungrily at her. She wants to leave _now, _but it's only eight in the morning, and he's got her coffee, and Ryan is looking at her funny, so she buries her head in her file and waits for Castle to sit down.

His fingers brush over her wrist as he sets her coffee by her keyboard.

"Are we-"

"Yes," she answers. "We are. Soon as - I mean, I rode it to work this morning. So when the day is over-"

"Oh, yes," he whispers, but his voice is husky, a little raw, and she seriously didn't realize just how much of this was actual fantasy for him. She figured there was some healthy male lust mixed in with a mostly abstract appreciation for her body, but this is. . .

"You seem a little worked up there, Castle."

He raises an eyebrow, cool at least in that, and his finger lifts from his knee, that unconscious gesture of agreement she's seen him do on so many ocassions but not like this.

"Whose fault is that?" he murmurs.

He slides a hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out the key to her bike, his fingers flipping it around and around, hypnotizing.

She is really not going to be able to get a thing done today.

* * *

"You have a license for this?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "No, but I know how to drive one."

The bike is between them, her Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail in black and leather, and more black and chrome, and she's dangling a helmet on her finger towards him.

Castle takes it, doesn't even remotely care that it will flatten his hair, that he'll look ridiculous, because she is seriously, _seriously_, letting him ride and/or _operate_ her motorcycle. With her on it.

Dare he even say? - straddling it.

"Then I'll drive us out of the city a little ways. I see you dressed for it," she murmurs, lifting an eyebrow at him. He wore lined pants, his leather coat, a thick scarf, leather gloves. He's been broiling hot all day, but the wind is brutal on the road.

As he snaps the helmet in place, he sees her press her lips together. "Don't laugh at me, Beckett."

"Oh no. I'm not."

"You are. But you know what? Don't care. Can't spoil my fun."

"Once we get outside the city, I'll let you drive," she says finally.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course." She shrugs at him. "You might want to think about getting that Class M distinction though. If you want to make this a regular thing."

"I want. Oh, I want."

Her lips are smirking again. "Okay then. You ready to ride?"

"No leather?"

She slides her thigh over the bike, gives him an arch look.

"Yeah, yeah, letting it go," he murmurs, watching her adjust into the seat, her legs so damn long and fine and toned, even under her jeans.

Not wearing her leather might have been a good idea. He's not sure he's going to survive _this_.

"Get on, Castle."

* * *

Awesome.

This is.

So.

Awesome.

It's freezing cold, but the sky is wide and overcast, an endless expression of motorcycle heaven as the ribbon of the road meets the horizon. Kate is draped at his back, her arms around his waist and her hands running under his leather jacket, her fingers against the bare skin of his stomach and doing her part to fulfill almost every fantasy he's ever hard - had. Had. Not hard. Okay, that too.

"Okay, Castle," she yells over the wind, her body flushed against his and leaning in tight so she can talk. "I'm gonna teach you how to pop a wheelie."

"Oh my God."

Is she serious? Shit. He will not survive this DAY.

"Start off slowly, so take your speed down. Keep it even."

He does as she says, his excitement an actual taste in his mouth, his blood pounding hard, and Kate so warm at his back, her voice in his ear.

"This is what you're gonna do. Roll on the throttle in low gear. From quarter throttle to full in about a second. Okay?"

"Okay," he replies, tensing as he feels the beast under him still roaring down the country road.

"Do _not_ lift up on the handlebars. The power in the throttle will lift the front end with only a little nudge from you. If it doesn't work, coast out and try again with a little faster roll on the throttle."

Oh God.

"Okay-"

"Can I go now?"

"No, wait," she says, squeezing his hips with her thighs. Shiiit.

She can't do that and expect him to pay attention.

"Before you try it. Once the wheel is up, it's the throttle that controls how high it goes - more throttle means it goes higher, less throttle brings it down."

"More throttle: higher. Got it."

Her knees press into his legs and he gulps, tries to ignore the way that shoots through him.

"When you want to set it down - and you'll feel it in the bike, too, when it needs to go down - make sure the front wheel is straight and gently roll off the throttle. Don't use the brakes. Never use the brakes."

"This sounds all very dirty," he growls.

He feels her laughter against his back rather than hears it. Her hand strokes his thigh and he yelps, feels the bike weave.

"Castle!"

"I got it. I got it. Jeez, just don't - ug, don't touch me quite so-"

Her hands pull back to waist, doing wonders for his powers of concentration, but he sighs anyway.

"Okay, you ready to try it?"

"Hell, yeah."

"Go for it."

Quarter throttle. Wheel straight. Roll into full throttle in under a second-

"Whoa, shit."

Castle laughs as the wheel comes up, exhilaration flooding through him and escaping to the wind. Kate is gripping him fiercely, and the bike as well, as the power surges through the frame and vibrates between his legs.

He popped a wheelie.

Holy shit.

He laughs again as he rolls the throttle a little higher, and he feels Kate leaning forward into him, hanging on. After a moment, he realizes the bike is tugging, and he straightens the wheel again, gently rolls off the throttle to set it down.

They bump a little hard, the bike leans, but he keeps them upright and steady enough. Kate doesn't even try to correct him, just keeps her body pressed against his and her palms flat against his chest.

His heart is racing, his grip tight on the handlebars, and he feels Kate squeeze her thighs around him again in reward. _Good job._

He swallows back his laughter and eyes the open road ahead of them. "Can I do it again?"

* * *

He pops wheelies for an hour and then she teaches him to do the endo, which is the reverse, the back wheel coming up, but when he nearly spills them out, she yells in his ear to let her drive.

"Okay," he says back, beginning to slow down.

"No, Castle."

And then she proceeds to climb around him, her legs wrapping around his waist and sliding in front, chest to chest, and he doesn't dare take his eyes off the road, even though he wants to so very badly, oh so badly.

"Don't wreck us," she chuckles.

Shit. He's gonna wreck them.

"Steady, Castle. Shit."

He straightens the wheel, slows it down a little bit, and hopes to God his daughter doesn't do anything this stupidly crazy on her Vespa. Ever. _Sorry, Jim Beckett, but how in the world do you expect me to keep in control of your daughter when she's this hot and amazing and _hot_?_

Once Kate is in front of him, her eyes bright and wicked below the curve of her helmet, she slowly side-saddles the motorcycle, a tight grip on his arm as she turns around.

She slips her hands up under his on the handlebars, replaces his feet in the same, easy, careful manner, and he slowly wriggles back to allow her room. Castle slides his gloved hands up her arms, half helping her steer, keep it steady, and half feeling her up, and he swears it's not just the bike that's purring.

When she's got control again, he wraps his body around hers and wishes his mouth were free to touch her, any part of her, but the helmet she gave him covers everything, the visor blocking his moves.

She reaches back and grips his thigh, strokes up, making him grunt, and he can feel her humming laugh all through his body.

And then Kate shows off - racing, wheelies as he breathlessly hangs on (damn, it feels out of control on the back like this), the endo as he braces himself and realizes why he nearly killed them trying it, and then just zipping down the country road past cows and pasture and rolled up haystacks while Beckett's body tenses between his legs - all of it so very hot he doesn't care _who_ is driving the motorcycle, so long as they don't stop.

* * *

He realizes only when they arrive that she's driven him back to her place. She's already hopping off, shaking her hair out, helmet between her fingers.

"Kate?"

"You're staying with me tonight," she murmurs.

No argument there.

"You leave it on the street?" He unfastens his helmet, scrapes his fingers over his scalp, feels the way his body still thrums. She's bent over to lock the front wheel, her ass and her legs, and ohhh, he is done for. It's gonna be a long. embarrassing walk up unless he can pull her in front of him and-

"Tonight I do."

Yeah, tonight she's gonna do a _lot._

He watches her back arch as she reaches for him, fingers tangling with his, and the first thing he wants to do when they get inside her place is peel those jeans off of her and wrap her legs-

"Come on, Castle. Time to ride."

"You are my kind of woman, Kate Beckett."


	8. Dec 7 - Home is wherever I'm with you

_December 7 - Home is wherever I'm with you_

* * *

Castle hasn't been home since yesterday, and while his body is thrumming with anticipation about what awaits him in her advent calendar, he steps out of the 12th precinct's main doors and blinks in shocked awareness.

Twilight has begun to drape the city with a verdant and intense blue, the silhouette of the city rippling with sky. Stars are sharp in the indigo velvet like diamond pins, their finely shaped light cutting through the clamor of New York.

Rick stands still in the middle of the sidewalk, overcome with the way the universe has seemed to step right down onto the earth, a textured and living indigo displaying the cosmos as if the sky itself is an aquarium of the heavens.

He calls Kate, transfixed by the fuchsia-green of the set sun meeting the creeping darkness of a turquoise and navy sky. She answers distractedly, still stuck in the middle of that murder board, no doubt, but he he can barely speak.

"Kate," he breathes. "The sky."

"What? Castle, I'm waiting on a-"

"Come out here."

"What? Where are you?"

"Right outside the 12th. Come down here, Kate. Please."

He waits, breathless, and realizes after a moment that she's hung up. He slides his phone into his inside pocket and stares at the sky, lets his eyes linger over the way it touches and enhances the cityline, the crisp edges of the buildings, even nuances each face that passes him on the sidewalk.

"Wow."

He startles and glances behind him to see Kate Beckett, her hair in a knot at her neck and beginning to fall, wearing only a that thin cream cardigan, but the whole universe in her eyes.

"It's beautiful," she murmurs, and finally turns to look at him.

"You miss it in the winter - always stuck inside." He says, turns his eyes back to the deep and many-layered heavens. "Thought you shouldn't miss it this time."

She takes his hand, warm, her fingers lacing with his, her body coming close at his side.

"Love you too, Castle."

* * *

She had a meeting after work, an allegedly quick appointment that lasted hours, but everything's going smoothly - easily in fact. Maybe too easy? Because the subway ride to her stop makes her restless, her muscles weary and body aching from a day spent running down leads in the drizzling rain and staring at the murder board even though nothing resolves.

It's late. It's so late, and she just wants a few hours of nothingness before sleep. Before tomorrow will start it all over again.

When she gets to her apartment, she realizes it's already not _home_ to her any longer. It's familiar and comfortable and warm, but it _lacks_. Or maybe it's just the chill in the air because she forgot to nudge the heat up when she left for work this morning, Castle at her back and trying to distract her with a silly conversation about the Batman movies.

Dropping her keys on the kitchen counter, unsnapping her holster and badge, Kate begins unlayering the day from her body. She unzips and tugs off her boots, drops them in the hall on her way to her bedroom, bypasses the siren song of her bed to detour to her bathroom.

She turns on the hot water faucet full force, shivering as her bare toes curl on the cold floor. Kate tugs her sweater over her head and peels off her jeans, the thunder of water in the tub drowning everything out. Relentless, inevitable.

All of it is, really. She's known since last year, when she silently agreed to open Castle's advent calendar, that it would end up like this.

She's not _afraid_; it's just been one of those days. The responsibility of it has gotten to her in a way she didn't expect. This is it.

This is it for her.

Kate pulls her hair back from her face and secures it with a rubber band, adjusts the water temperature with a little cold to keep from outright burning her skin. She pads back down the hallway, goose bumps rising across her flesh, and stops at the kitchen. A glass of wine, a bag of chocolate. . .

She takes both, pouring the wine with wind-chapped fingers, the bottle clinking heavily against the glass. She puts it back in the fridge with a shiver, dancing away from the blast of cold air, and then gathers the chocolate and heads back for the humid warmth of her bathroom.

(She is not thinking about how psyched Castle would be if he were here, watching her walk around her apartment in only her underwear.)

She settles everything on the little table next to the tub, goes back for her book even though she doubts she'll read it. Maybe she will.

Kate unhooks her bra, lets it slide down her arms, then steps out of her underwear and into the tub. Heat slips up her toes, closes around her ankles, slides up her calves, embraces her body as she settles down into the water. She gingerly puts her back against the cold porcelain, then sinks down a little deeper into her bath.

She pushes the faucet off with her toes and is met with immediate silence.

Her eyes close, her body relaxes, warmth radiating down into her bones. The scent of lavender fills her lungs and curls around her neck, the heat unfurling around her. The water laps around the islands of her knees, licks gently along her neck, at the shore of her collarbones, and she shifts slowly to feel it ripple around her.

Kate traces her fingertips over the angles of her hips, down her thighs, lets her hands lift away to float in the water.

The day sloughs slowly, layers lifting from her skin to dissolve in the warm water. She can hear the rain trickling over the roof, the side of the building, pinging off the fire escape; a slow rumble of thunder ripples out into a faint murmur.

This day. . .

She hears a key scrape in her stubborn lock and a smile slides across her face. Kate turns her head towards the partially closed bathroom door and waits for him.

When he finally comes through her bedroom, she lifts her hand from the bath, water trickling off her fingers and down her arm, reaches for him.

"Hey," she murmurs.

"I came to see if you had more for me," he says softly, his voice a strange echo of the faint thunder outside, deep and low.

"The chocolate?" she smiles.

"Or that."

Castle comes farther into the bathroom, kneels down slowly next to her. She strokes a damp trail along his jaw and his eyes drop to her body, adding heat to the water brushing her skin.

She curls her fingers at his ear, lifts up to touch her mouth to the corner of his.

"Mm, I taste a kiss."

"Only one," he sighs. "But I think I spy the rest of the bag in here." He laughs softly, the sound traveling quickly down her spine and making her stomach coil. She lifts a knee in the water and turns towards him.

"It is. You getting in?"

"I don't know. You look pretty comfortable."

"Better with you," she sighs, slips her eyes closed at the admission only to feel his kiss on her forehead, the drag of his lips down her temple to her ear.

"Love you too, Kate."

Her chest clenches at the rough slide of words in his throat; she tugs on his neck and kisses him, lips to lips, lets the heat blossom slowly between them.

"Get in," she whispers.

* * *

She laughs around the sleepy edge of consciousness, lifts her chin. "Gonna drown me."

He's so warm under her chest that even though the bath has started to cool, it barely matters. "You falling asleep on me?"

"Mm, getting there," she sighs, feels the water lap at her jawline again.

Castle lifts, arms around her back as he sits up a little more. She shivers, curls closer to press her nose into his neck. He huffs at her and stabs his fingers through her limp, wet hair, tangling it as he lowers his head to kiss her cheek.

"Remember last year?" he murmurs.

"Mm, yeah?"

"It snowed that day."

"Oh," she says softly, her eyelashes brushing against his chest. "Yeah. The same day last year - it did. It was soft snow; it melted before it even touched the ground."

"And you came to the loft-"

"-to share."

"Not for the rest of my hershey kisses?" he says, amusement in his voice.

"Honestly?" she admits, lifting her head to look at him. "No."

"No. No?"

She shakes her head, reaches up to stroke her fingertips across his lips. "To share the snow. How quiet and dark it was that night. Magic. Sometimes you just need someone to see it too."

"Honestly, I didn't come over tonight for your chocolate either," he murmurs then, his lips stretching into a smile behind her fingers.

"I didn't think so," she answers. "Even though you've eaten half of it."

"Keepin' track, Beckett?"

She narrows her eyes at him, can't hold it. It falls into a half-smile and she sits up, sees the way his gaze drops over her body. "Not keeping track at all - just kinda hard to miss when you're cheering for every aluminum foil ball you scored in my trash can."

He laughs at that, sitting up as well, that huge and silly grin on his face as he comes in close. His mouth touches hers, tongue teasing, and she slides closer, her knees bracketing him, her hands landing on his shoulders.

He slips his thumbs at her jaw, draws her back with a hungry look. "Kate."

She has a clever line on the tip of her tongue - slam dunk, Michael Jordan - but instead she can't tear her eyes away from his, from the want and the naked need for her that shadows the twilight blue.

"Come to bed," she murmurs, leaning in to touch her open mouth to his, breathing in concert with him.

And then she stands, water cascading down the lines of her body, and steps out of the bathtub, holding her hand out to him.

Castle takes it, his eyes like blue flames in the darkness.


	9. Dec 8 - The one that leads to you

_December 8 - I only want the one that leads to you_

* * *

He grunts awake at the whisper of a touch against his skin, his eyes wide in the darkness. For too long a moment, he doesn't know where he is, what's happened, and he struggles against the paralysis of deep night.

He's in her bed though; it's just the ends of her hair brushing his neck. Maybe she turned over in her sleep and it woke him. Sometimes he's still not used to the way sharing a life works in the real world - the day to day living.

Castle pushes out of bed slowly, needing respite from the dark edge of dreams, and finds his feet on the floor. He flexes his toes against the cold, shivers a little, but stands up, swaying.

Last night was good. They needed that - sharing again, time spent just soaking each other in. It does wonders for him to just be able to adore her, have her accept it, blossom under it.

He loves her; he really does. It's just felt. . .circuitous lately. Like they should be getting somewhere, only they're not. He's had to rein in his natural exuberance in favor of slow and steady wins the race, and it's just not easy for him. He jumps. It's not. . .

Well, did he ever think it would be easy with Kate Beckett? He doesn't want easy - easy isn't them.

Castle shuffles out of her bedroom and into the living room, bypasses the couch where he usually spends his restless wanderings with his laptop, and he heads instead for the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he stands before the cold air and lets it wake him up, pull him out of dreams he doesn't remember.

If he's honest, the bordering on oblique nature of their relationship is probably his fault. Treading too carefully or not paying attention or being content not to push. What did she say last year to him? Something about not letting her get away with it. But he has - he lets her get away with a lot - because it's. . .easier.

Easier.

Jeez, one in the morning is not the time to be having this mental argument with himself over something so very ridiculous. It's just the nightmare he woke to that's left this sense of restless unfulfillment, and the darkness of her place, and-

Kate's asleep in her bed and so why exactly is he standing in front of her open refrigerator?

Substitution.

He wants to open the window on his advent calendar and feel that rush of specialness wash over him. He's gotten addicted to it, to that daily reminder of how much she loves and knows him, how she's giving him this because she wants joy for him.

He made the advent calendar for her last year because, deep down, he wanted it for himself as well. To know. To know every day. To have her know as well.

It's waiting for him - out there. At his loft, quiet and dark and empty.

Actually. No.

It's waiting for him_ in here_. In her apartment, in her bed, in the warmth of her body as she sleeps and those soft little sighs she makes when he wakes her and the hum in her chest when she curls into him and the slow, beautiful smile she gives him when she opens her eyes.

It's here in the ends of her hair tickling him awake, and the cold toes that burrow into the back of his knees, and the too-flat pillow that she shares with him.

So he shuts the refrigerator door and heads back down the hallway to her room.

And into her bed. Into her warm space, breathing her in.

And sleeps.

* * *

"Castle."

A slip into dim dawn, the brush of fingertips at his temple, and he's waking slowly to Kate's eyes on him, those rings of endless light within the pale moon of her face.

"Kate," he murmurs, lips pulled up in a sigh of a smile. "Hi."

"Aren't you supposed to get back before Alexis?"

It doesn't resolve all the way - the day, her question - just out of focus. There is only the brand of her eyes on him and now, oh now, that sketched and cautious curve of her cheek against the grey morning.

"Castle, wake up for me."

"Hmm?"

"Alexis coming for breakfast? Saturday brunch?"

"Oh. Is she?"

A rumble trembles through him, vibrating along the sheets, and then he realizes he's awake. Kate is laughing at him.

"Rick," she murmurs, and he opens his eyes to see her close, so close, feels her fingertips skate down the side of his face.

"Hi."

"You with me?"

"Yeah."

"Is Alexis expecting you at the loft as usual?"

He blinks through the film of sleep and dreams, smiles at her when he finally figures it out. "Oh, yeah. Breakfast."

"That's at nine, right?"

He manages to slide his arm out from under his body and snakes it across her waist, curling up at her. "Yeah, nine."

"Okay," she says softly. "Then you should probably get going, Rick."

"You coming too?"

"You want me there?"

He hums into the idea of Kate sitting warm at his side, lounging in the early light, scrambled eggs and french toast, listening to his daughter's stories about freshman dorms and mixers.

"Okay, okay," she laughs a little, her lips at his temple, so soft and cool. Like pillows. Sleep is so nice. This is so nice. Kate. "I'll come too. But you need to wake up."

* * *

Kate jiggles his hand with her own, watches him open the door to his loft. He's laughing at her stupid joke - still laughing - and he doesn't even hesitate when he pushes through the doorway.

She grins widely back at him, her chest filling with the relaxed smile on his face. She comes in quickly and presses a kiss to that mouth, tasting the edges of his happiness, and suddenly she hears a delicately cleared throat.

"Hey guys."

Kate steps back with a sigh, biting her bottom lip as she swings around. Alexis stands in the kitchen, the implements of breakfast all around her, and she gives Kate a wave of her fingers.

"Hey, Alexis. How's school?" Castle says, squeezing Kate's hip and pushing past her towards the kitchen. Kate regains her footing and follows after him, determined to belong.

* * *

It's an easy, friendly breakfast - Castle maybe touches her a little too much for what Kate's comfortable with in front of his daughter - but's nice. Like family. He doesn't _once_ try to slip out and open up the Advent calendar, which is a surprise, but she's glad he's enjoying himself.

He makes them french toast and scrambled eggs while Kate cuts up fruit and Alexis sits at the bar, munching on bacon she made when she got there, and regaling them with crazy stories about the dorm.

"And then Todd - or wait, was it Josh? can't remember, anyway - they start throwing out this powder all down the hall. So me and Marian-"

"Marian and I," he murmurs, flipping the eggs and scooping them out onto a serving dish.

Kate rolls her eyes and sees Alexis grinning at her, clearly feeling the same. Grammar police for an nineteen year old?

"Marian and I. . .We head out into the hallway to see what they're doing - all the guys, you know? And it smells like a laundromat-"

"They soaped the hall?" Kate murmurs with a laugh, then covers her mouth to keep from ruining Alexis's story.

But the girl only laughs as well. "Yeah, exactly. They soaped the floor and then connected that garden hose they stole to the kitchen faucet on our hall and then-"

Castle gasps, turning from the stove with the spatula in his hand and pointing it at Alexis. "They made a slip-n-slide out of the whole hallway? Are you kidding me?"

Alexis is grinning so widely that it could stretch right off her face. She bounces at the counter and leans in. "The _whole_ hallway. Oh, Dad. You would've loved it. It was awesome. We all changed into shorts and tshirts and just spent the next three hours sliding around, wrestling-"

"Better not have been mixed-gender wrestling," Castle frowns, flicking the spatula at her.

Alexis's face blanks, her mouth open wide, and Kate rescues her, turning Castle back around to the stove and the french toast. "Finish our breakfast before you go all Super Dad. Okay, Castle?"

"Better _not_ have been mixed-"

"No, never," she murmurs, lifting on her toes to kiss his cheek. "That never ever happens in college co-ed dorms."

He huffs at her and narrows his eyes. "You are so not funny."

She can't help the little grin that flickers to life as she nudges his hip. Then she turns back to Alexis. "So. Did your hall get in trouble for the slip-n-slide?"

Alexis groans. "Oh, big time. We had to clean the whole dorm and. . .um, pay for water damages."

Castle sighs, turns back around, but Kate grips him by the arm, giving him a swift look. He narrows his eyes at her and then glances to Alexis.

"Was there much damage?"

"Some. But I already - I took it out of my own savings account and. . .it's all good. The whole hall shared the expenses."

"But it was fun?" Castle asks, lifting an eyebrow at her.

"It was awesome."

He nods. "Good. Worth it then."

Alexis grins in relief and crunches on another strip of bacon. "That french toast ready or what? I'm starving."

* * *

Kate tucks her feet back up under Castle's thigh as she reads, but she hears a high-pitched squeak of surprise and lifts her eyes to find a different Castle entirely.

Kate withdraws her toes from Alexis's leg, blush staining her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I thought you were your dad."

"No, no. You just surprised me," Alexis laughs, then reaches out for Kate's toes, squeezing. "And since dad's in the bathroom. . ."

Kate glances swiftly towards the back bedroom, sits up a little. "Yeah?"

"We still on?"

"Definitely," Kate grins, then frowns. "Wait. For which?"

"Oh, the special event. I mean - I think I've got everything ready on our end."

"Yeah? Good. Your dad figure out-?"

"Well, he knows something's going on because usually he and I do this months in advance, you know? But I've done it on my own before, so I don't think he realizes you and I have. . ."

"Conspired?" Kate grins, biting her bottom lip. "Good. I don't want him to figure it out until the last minute."

"Oh, he won't. I'm so excited. This is going to be good. I'm surprised we haven't thought of it before, really."

Kate nods back, imagining the look on his face when they-

"Oh, but what was the other thing, Kate?"

She glances back to his daughter, her mind momentarily blank, and then she gives a soft laugh. "Oh well. I shouldn't presume-"

"Oh, come on. Presume away. What?"

"You. . .still want to make cookies with me this year?"

"Of course," Alexis breathes out, her face lifting into a hopeful, entirely too hesitant smile. "I do if you still do. Your mom's Christmas cookies."

Kate nods, closing her book and resting it against her raised knees. "I don't know what my schedule is going to look like, but last year we did it on the thirteenth-"

"That's a. . .Thursday right? I've got a late class, seven to nine, but we'll be in the middle of exams, so I should probably get out at eight. Want to do it here again, or at your place?"

"Here is good."

"What are my girls so secretive about?" Castle says from the doorway, heading towards them on the couch. He works his way down right between them, a hand on Kate's knee, one on Alexis's, and they grin at each other across him.

"Just trying to pick a date for making those Christmas cookies," Alexis fills him in, her eyes sparkling with their secret.

"And who said I'm your girl?" Kate mutters, narrowing her eyes at him to throw him off.

"I do. I say so. You gonna make something of it?"

Kate presses her lips together in a frown that's more of a smile, and she leans in to nudge her nose against his neck, kissing him behind the cover of his body so Alexis can't see, touching her tongue to his earlobe.

"I'll let it go. For now."

"That's my girl," he murmurs, an amused and wicked gleam in his eye.

She lets him have his fun.


	10. Dec 9 - The story of who I am

_December 9 - All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am_

* * *

_Let me tell you a story._

Attached to the note is a white paper snowflake and then the rolled up photo for today - the fifth clue in his puzzle mystery.

_Let me tell you a story._

A white paper snowflake.

He calls her, even though it's six in the morning on a Sunday and she's got the day off.

"I'm at work," she sighs into the phone.

"At work?" He slumps, fingering the snowflake.

"But you got today's?"

"Yeah," he answers, sitting down at his dining room table. "You wanna tell me a dirty story, Beckett?"

She laughs down the line, throaty and low, and he grins.

"Hey, why didn't you call me if you had a case today?"

"Just prelim stuff. Dead woman in a swimming pool."

"Like in my book," he gasps. "Like our first case?"

"No, Castle," she says, amusement tinging her voice. "No flowers. Not your book. Plain old murder. Not your kind of case at all. And we know who did it. Just a matter of filing the paperwork."

"Oh, okay. Darn."

"Not at all - easier for me," she laughs. "So, my story. I'll have to tell you that later, all right? But in the meantime-"

"Oh yeah, in the meantime?" He scrubs a tired hand through his hair and studies the open windows from the last nine days of advent, smiling to himself.

"Yesterday's Little Book-"

"-of Secrets?" He laughs in appreciation, grinning widely as he reaches for it. He's trying to leave everything in each window as it comes, so he can remember it for later, and he pulls the tiny black Book of Secrets towards him. "This thing is pretty awesome."

"Did you read what the very first secret is?"

"Yeah, I did. The Secret of Attracting Beautiful Women. Uh-huh. Think I need that secret, Beckett?"

"No comment. I thought it was funny that you seem to do each one of those on the list without even knowing you're doing it."

"You're right. _Be appealing_ - check, _Lead an interesting life _- check, and _Aim high _- heck yeah. With you? I aimed pretty damn high. And it worked."

"Worked, huh? Think you got me?"

"I know I got you," he says, smirking to himself.

Kate sighs, as if she's put out, but he hears the little humming chuckle she can't help.

"There was also _Make her laugh,_" he adds, wishing he could see that smile she's trying to hold back. "I like that one."

"Me too." Kate gives a soft sigh. "Actually, I gotta go. Later, Castle. We'll finish this."

"Looking forward to it."

* * *

"Where's my storrrry, Beckett? Where, where-"

"Oh my goodness, you are insatiable," she mutters into the phone, wincing as her neck pops when she holds it tighter to her ear. "I have two more hours here. Just give me two hours, Castle."

"Fiiine," he moans. "I'm gonna go to your place-"

"No, no. I'll come to yours. I've got everything there."

"Hmm, okay then. Wait, what's everything?"

She smirks. "For me to know."

"Fine. Be that way. What am I supposed to do?"

"Be patient, maybe?"

"Detective. I don't know if you've noticed, but patience isn't my strong suit."

Kate huffs to keep back a laugh, sees Esposito motion for her. "I gotta go. Stop calling me."

She hangs up on him before he can prolong the agony of that conversation.

Because he's wrong, of course. He can wait. He waited for her for four years.

* * *

When Kate arrives at his apartment, he's standing right in the entryway waiting for her, that ridiculous, goofy smile on his face. He grabs her by the lapels of her coat, tugs her in for a kiss, making her trip over her own feet and his as he pulls her close.

"Gonna let me in the door?" she murmurs, lifting her lips into a soft smile before she steps away.

"Come on in," he says, taking her coat and hanging it up as she steps out of her shoes. "I made early dinner thinking you might have skipped lunch."

"I had lunch," she says, poking him in the chest for that. "But yeah, I could eat."

He snags her by the hand and takes her into the kitchen, Kate following just to see what he's done, how long it will take him to ask her about her _story_.

"Easy case?" he asks, and there's something to the tenor of his voice that lets her know he's barely holding it back.

She savors it, the way they are both pointedly not talking about today's _Let me tell you a story_, and she gives a shrug of her shoulders as she heads for the kitchen cabinet and his plates.

"Bowls," he corrects. "Glad you finished up early."

She hears him let out a little breath when she says nothing more, and she has to hide the smile in her shoulder as she pulls down two bowls.

"So. . ."

Kate lifts her eyes to him, keeping a clean poker face, arches an eyebrow in question.

He flushes, brow furrowing, then nods. "Want cheese or sour cream?"

Chili for dinner, and Castle's playing along with the game. She takes a deep breath and leans in. "Neither. You got crackers?"

"Yeah, I'll get them." He turns and heads for the pantry and she watches him go, the easy stride and the loose hug of his jeans. He reaches up for the crackers in their container on the top shelf, and she leans against the counter, cradling her empty bowl to her chest, letting herself watch.

When he turns back around, he's got a crooked, self-deprecating smile on his face, blue dress shirt, couple buttons open, a little scruff on his jaw, eyes so light in the soft glow of his loft.

"What?"

She shakes her head, reaches out for him as he comes. She bats away the crackers he tries to give her, crooks her fingers in the placket of his shirt, steps into him. He grunts with surprise but takes her kiss, smiling a little wider now beneath her lips, lifts a hand to her neck, thumb stroking her jaw.

She pulls her head back, nudging his cheek with her nose, breathing him in, slowly opening her eyes to look at him. She loves that - loves him - so amazing.

And she can't keep it back any longer.

"Let me tell you a story," she murmurs.

* * *

"Where you going?" he laughs softly. She's trying to untangle his fingers from hers, their arms stretched between them, so he lets her go. Even though he doesn't really want to.

"I gotta get something."

"I thought you were gonna tell me a story," he murmurs, sitting down with his bowl of chili. She disappears down the hallway towards his room, and he can't fathom what she's hidden away without his notice.

He takes a few bites of chili, nudging at her bowl with his index finger to make sure it's still warm, and then she comes back through with a box.

"What's that?"

"Christmas decorations," she says, giving him a crooked lift of her lips. She looks nervous; it's kinda cute.

"You gonna eat or go right into it?"

"I can do both," she shrugs, setting the box on the table. She opens the flaps one at a time and pulls out a white snowflake, sets it beside her bowl. He watches her sit down across from him and tuck into her chili, blowing on a spoonful before cautiously touching her tongue to it. Devastating. That mouth.

He averts his eyes, rests them instead on the snowflake lying on his table.

"I have one of those," he says around a bite.

"Hm, little different but yeah, you do." She eats slowly, killing him with it, but he matches her pace, trying to keep from being antsy and ruining the mood. He can't help being a backseat storyteller, wanting to improve upon the language, but last year he did that - hijacked what she so carefully wanted to say, had all planned out to say - and he's promised himself he'll go at her speed.

He finishes his bowl and leans over to the Advent calendar sitting conspicuously between them. The snowflake from today is still in its open window, so he tugs it out, a tiny white paper star, the kind cut out with scissors. When he lifts his eyes to Kate, she's studying him so intensely that he can't help think-

"Did you make this?" he asks, mouth opening in surprise.

She nods at him. "Yeah."

He grins, chuckling, lets the snowflake spin on its silver string. "You made it," he repeats, something warm and tight in his chest, like the point of a star pressing into his lungs. "I need to put it up on my tree. Need to actually put up my tree to start with."

"That's actually - yeah. Part of my story, Castle. Stop jumping ahead." But there's a little switch of her lips, a small smile, and it's cute. She's cute.

He sits back, cupping his hand around the snowflake which she _made_ him, and he watches her finish her chili with a savoring last bite. She takes a sip of water and then picks up the snowflake he gave her last year.

"Don't make fun of me," she starts.

He laughs, can't help it, and shakes his head. "Never."

She lifts an eyebrow at that.

"I won't. Just tell me your story."

"I'm not a bestseller-

"You make a lot out of that, but really, Kate, it's nothing."

She frowns at him, her mouth open but no words coming out, and she shakes her head at him. "It's everything. To me."

He stares at her for a second; always - he always forgets. How does he forget just how much-

She jumps right in, without artistry. "So I made my first paper snowflake the year I turned five."

"I thought you said you don't remember anything before you were seven or eight."

"Hush, listen first," she mutters, but a smirk is playing over her lips. "I know I was five, because my mother put the year on the back, at the bottom."

She reaches out and flips over the one in his hand; she's marked his 2012 in the bottom corner, at a particularly delicate angle of the snowflake's arm.

"I thought they were so amazing. Just like a snowflake, no two were ever alike. We did them in class with my teacher and I went home and showed my mom how to make them. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table with me, both of us cutting more and more elaborate shapes, folding the paper differently, experimenting with it."

His chest is filling up with her like starlight, clear and blue.

"It became one of our Christmas traditions, making snowflakes together. Until I turned thirteen. For some reason, it had never occurred to me until that year that cutting a snowflake out of a sheet of paper wasn't some secret art. I hadn't taught my mom anything she didn't already know. We had a huge fight and I yelled that she'd been patronizing me this whole time."

Castle sighs and opens his mouth, but she lifts an eyebrow in silent command. But he has a daughter, he _knows_ that's not what her mother was doing.

"My mom was laughing. I thought she was laughing at me. I was thirteen. I know it was water under the bridge; I know she probably didn't even remember the fight later. But we never sat down and made snowflakes together again."

"Oh, Kate-"

"I grew out of it; it happens." She's standing up from the table and opening the brown packing box; only then does he notice it says _Xmas Decorations_ in her own strong, graceful hand. She presses open the flaps of the box with her palms.

"But the Christmas before - our last Christmas with her. When I got home from college, she'd pulled out every single snowflake we'd made together and she'd hung them up in my room. She was teasing me and she was - saying I love you. We were laughing; we laughed a lot that Christmas."

Castle's mouth drops open as she slowly pulls out huge, brittle-looking paper snowflakes, a chain of them strung together, some individual, some the bright blue of construction paper or the sharp white of computer paper. _She was saying I love you._

"Wow."

Kate nods, giving him that shy, amazing smile as she spreads the snowflakes out over the table. "So when you gave me a snowflake last year. . ."

"Oh, wow."

Her soft laughter is soothing, but there's a shimmering at the back of her eyes that makes his chest tight. She leans forward and snags the snowflake she made, letting it spin on its string. Then she holds out her other hand to him, wriggling her fingers, and he takes it, standing with her.

"That's just the beginning of my story," she says, pulling him towards the box. He stands at her side and watches her reveal Christmas ornaments that are wrapped in paper, layered in boxes, cradled inside other ornaments. "These are ornaments from my family's tree. They tell stories too."

He fingers a construction paper Christmas tree, a picture of a six year-old Katie as the star on the top; she's making a terrifying face - scowling so fierce.

"Aw, look how cute," he teases. "You going to tell me these stories?"

"I will," she answers, no hesitation to her voice. "And I want your stories too."

He peers past her fingers to see her reaching for more ornaments, but these are ones he recognizes. These are his.

"Martha let me into storage," she confesses, taking out another layer of decorations and laying them out on the table: a pipe cleaner reindeer, scribbled crayon star, felt angel that a relative made, glass globes that catch the light. "Alexis helped me pick out your favorites."

Castle grins up at her, glances back down to the box. It's not everything, of course, but their combined ornaments could be enough. There will be gaps, bare branches, but room to grow that way.

"I can tell you some pretty great stories," he says finally, already imagining it. _Let me tell you a story._

He reaches back inside the box and pulls out one of his favorites - the handprint wreath that Alexis made - then flips it over so he can see his daughter's name carefully etched on the back. But it's not Alexis's name at all. It's a wide scrawl in bright purple - _Katie Beckett_.

His breath catches; he turns a hopelessly-gone smile to her, heart squeezing, and she steps in a little closer to him, her fingers touching the edges of the wreath.

"Castle, this year, we start our own story."

He nods roughly, clears his throat. "I'd like that."

She watches him a moment, maybe looking for doubt or hesitation, but then she lifts up on her toes and kisses his jaw softly. He cups the back of her head and angles for a better kiss, his mouth meeting hers, the softness of her, the beautiful intent.

When they part, warm, buzzing, she smiles at him.

"Go get your tree out of storage, Castle. We've got all night."

"So long as you hang those paper snowflakes."

"Of course," she murmurs, and then she strokes her fingers down his neck and somehow, somehow he sees everything in her face, their whole life together, just exactly how good it will be.


	11. Dec 10 -Don't care about material things

_December 10 - I don't care about material things_

* * *

Castle shows up with her coffee sometime around nine, looking entirely too chipper for her mood.

Kate sips her third cup of caffeine for the day (the first from him, she can't help thinking), but she's glad they got the tree lit, got a healthy dent made in decorating for Christmas. He texted his daughter and Alexis showed up halfway into the night, and then Martha got home from _a place that shall remain nameless _and it was a big family thing. She didn't expect it, but she should have. She should have thought of inviting his _family_ to decorate the loft. Of course.

So it's possible her mood has something to do with that. How damn self-absorbed is she?

Decorating took an inordinate amount of time, and she's paying for the late hour, but it was so. . .nice. It was soothing, at first, the two of them, and then when his daughter and mother showed up, it was like being with family again. Maybe not her own family, but that's probably a good thing.

"Hey, I can't stay long," he says with a wince. "I forgot a meeting I rescheduled."

She waves him off. "Go. You brought me coffee - your contractual obligations have been fulfilled."

He grins wolfishly at her and leans in close, tries to whisper something no doubt dirty and/or lewd, but she pushes him away.

"Go to your meeting." But she smiles at him to soften the blow.

* * *

Castle has taken image captures of his photo clues, and he manipulates them on his iphone while stuck in a boring meeting. He tried texting Kate for relief, but she nixed that pretty quick.

She's given him six images so far, and really, all he's gotten from it is an overwhelming sense of. . .weather-beaten wood. A need to paint. Is her father's cabin that bad off? Last year it looked pretty good, but he's not a handyman.

He texts her again with a whiny _what is it, Beckett, please, one tiny tiny clue? _and he gets her answer back nearly immediately:

_Haven't you been listening?_

Listening.

Whoa, wait, wait. The _songs_ are clues too?

* * *

Beckett growls as she ends the phone call; she barely kept from biting the woman's head off. She hates red tape; she really can't handle more obstacles right now. She needs this to go smoothly. She's got fifteen days - no, less than that, because it's not like they'll be open for Christmas.

She shoves her phone into her pocket, ignoring the seven missed messages and three missed phone calls. They're all from Castle anyway, and she needs a glass of wine and a bath before she does anything else. Just so she won't say something mean.

It's been one of those days.

Doesn't help that last night's Christmas decorating has watered that seed of doubt. She really _is_ self-absorbed; she's thirty-three years old and used to living alone and cracking open her world to include _one_ person is hard enough, let alone his whole family. And their traditions, and their expectations, and-

Is she crazy?

No, it's just - stupid. It's stupid, and if she can chill out for a few hours and do nothing and not exist, wine and a book and a bath, then it will be okay. The world will right itself.

Kate slips her hand inside her bag, searching for her keys, chips her fingernail on her wallet and winces when the zipper snags her skin. Hissing, Kate dumps her coat and bag on the floor outside her apartment, crouches down to dig through her junk-

Her door opens and she startles back, falling on her ass. Castle leans over to haul her up, chuckling at her, and her feet tangle together.

"Jeez, Castle. What are you doing here?"

His brows knit together and she sees the flash of hurt, grips her bag to keep from _shoving_ him out of her face, because really. Really. _Get over it, Castle._

So she wants one stinking night to just-

"I thought we. . .I was just looking at those photos and-"

"Give me a couple hours before you hang all over me, okay?" she sighs, rubbing the heel of her hand into eye and heading for her bedroom.

"Kate?"

"Give me. An hour," she growls, dumping everything on the floor and stripping off her shirt.

She can practically _feel_ his gaze on her and she turns around, narrows her eyes at the soporific arousal glazing over his face.

_Don't touch me._

It almost comes out of her mouth. Almost. She has to get out of here.

Kate escapes to the bathroom.

* * *

She steps into the shower, lets the heat and the pounding water dissolve her ire.

He drives her crazy. Seriously crazy. She just needs five seconds alone. Alone. Forhis own sake, she needs a second.

And then she hears his voice bursting through the door. "Hey, Kate, is this-"

"I just want a shower first, Castle," she yells back, pressing her wet hand to her forehead, something thready and weak in her voice she absolutely hates. The water runs down into her eyes and she leans a shoulder against the tile, shivering at the air coming in under the curtain. "Shut the door when you leave."

"Fine."

"Fine."

He shuts the door a little too hard and she doesn't even care; she wanted a bath and she's compromising with a shower, and isn't that enough for him? Kate tilts her head back and lets the water soak her hair, making it heavy.

She breathes out in a huff, some of her irritation evaporating in the heat. She swipes at her eyes with damp fingers, promises herself to do something about him when she gets out.

For now, she needs the roar of water, and the numb nothing of scalded skin.

* * *

Kate wraps her hair into a bun and slides on yoga pants and a tshirt; she couldn't feel less sexy or more ridiculous for her childishness.

Castle has been good - or smart, really - and left her alone. She scrubs at her flushed face and checks her messages again. The woman hasn't called her back to let her know about the paperwork, but it's okay. It's okay. It will work out.

And if it doesn't, then maybe it's a sign from Castle's universe.

When she opens her bedroom door, the apartment is quiet, a little warmer than she usually leaves it. She steps softly across the wooden floors and sighs when she sees him stretched out on her couch, asleep.

How are they going to do this in the future? Just. . .go to their separate corners and wait out the frustration? Does that work in the real world? She has no idea. In the past when they've fought, it was big. Slamming doors and _I quit_, and kicking each other out. That doesn't work for either of them, and these aren't even real fights. So she's got no clue how to do this, but here they are.

Kate steps around the couch and perches on the edge of the cushion near his hip, using an arm for balance and stroking her fingertips across his forehead. His eyes slip open, a few soft blinks before he smiles.

Slow, a little sleepy, warm.

All is forgiven. She doesn't even need to say anything.

She shakes her head at him. "You shouldn't let me get away with it that easy," she murmurs.

He shrugs, slides his hand from his stomach to squeeze her knee. "I'm okay. I can take it."

"I'm sorry for jumping down your throat, Castle."

He gives her a crooked grin. "I might've enjoyed you jumping down my throat. What you did was freeze me out," he laughs.

She nods, takes in a long breath. At least he can laugh about it. She'll get there.

"But I get it, Kate. Alone time. A chance to decompress. I probably should've left-"

"No," she says quickly, curling her hand at his jaw. "No, I didn't want you to leave. Gotta figure out a better way of asking for it, huh?"

He's still smirking, and he props his head up with his knuckles, skates his other hand up her leg. "And I'll try not to take it so personally."

Kate leans in and presses a kiss to his smile, rubs her thumb over his lips as she pulls back. He's a good man. And he tries for her.

It will all work out.


	12. Dec 11 - Gonna have to guess again

_December 11 - Guess I'm gonna have to guess again_

* * *

Castle waits until Kate follows him into the kitchen before he opens the window casement with his thumbnail. He can hear her pulling creamer out of his fridge to add to the travel mug of coffee they left her place with this morning. He's supposed to be getting dressed, _quickly, Castle, we're late_, but he wants to get his gift first.

He stares inside the advent calendar.

It looks like a black swiss army knife.

Castle pulls it out, catches the rolled up photo that comes with it, but his eyes are on the rectangular device. Remote?

He flips it over right as Kate joins him in front of the dining room table, and reads the words printed into the grey plastic.

_SpyFinder_

"You did not," he laughs, lifting startled eyes to her.

She grins back, looking so pleased with herself, eyes shining. "Want the instructions?"

"Was does this - what is it for?"

"Wait, let me get the instructions. They're hilarious."

He watches her move towards the entryway where her bag is still on the floor, and now it's clear to him why she grabbed all that stuff when they left this morning. She pulls a thin booklet from her bag and comes back to him.

"Nice sweater," he says, taking the instructions and leering at her.

The verdant cashmere sets off the soft wave of her hair, the watermark of green in her brown eyes. She rolls her eyes at him. He proclaimed every single one of her other tops _too sexy_ and proceeded to take them off this morning. It's his favorite trick. It never gets old.

To him anyway.

He drops his gaze back to the device in his hands, opens up the instruction manual she gave him and reads it aloud.

"'SpyFinder finds all hidden cameras - wireless or wired. Simple to use. Simply hold this spy finder up to your eye-'"

He stops when she giggles, gives her a look - _this is serious, Beckett,_ - and then resumes reading.

"'Hold this spy finder up to your eye, push the button' - although, they've left out the comma, so I can't be certain it doesn't just say _eye push_-"

"Just read it," she laughs, drawing an arm around his waist on a hum.

"'Push the button, and search - that's all there is to it.'" He flips it over a few times, sees the circle of small red lights over the viewfinder at the top. "This is. . .I hope you didn't pay much for it."

She laughs again, takes it out of his hand. "It does actually work."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, try it. Come on. I know you want to."

"I still can't believe you're messing with me about this. There were actual hidden cameras in my house."

"You don't know that. We didn't find any. And well, now you'll always be able to check. Any time you get paranoid."

He lifts the SpyFinder to his face, hesitates only a second as she stands there, expectant and smiling. So he goes ahead and brings the viewfinder to his eye, scans the room with the device, the whole loft taken in with a strange and pinholed perspective this way.

The red lights don't go off. No spy cameras.

"See?" she says softly. "Just you and me, Castle. Now you want me to help you find something to wear?"

He quirks his lips as he lowers the SpyFinder. "Why, Detective Beckett. Was that a subtle way of saying you want me to take my pants off?"

"I do believe it was."

* * *

"Beckett," he stage whispers.

Kate jerks her head at the intrusion, glances over at him from her paperwork. "What?"

"It's boring."

"I know. Go home. I've just about wrapped this up."

"No, wait. Better idea."

She shakes her head. "No, Castle. I have work to do. Sit and be quiet, or head on out. My place."

His eyes are dancing, but he's totally ignoring her, isn't he?

"I got an idea. We should use my SpyFinder here. The break room, the bathroom, the janitor's closet. Figure out the safest places we can be consummate professionals."

She narrows her eyes at him, smells something lewd in that statement, but can't quite-

"Get it? It's a play on words. Consummate. Professionals."

She shoots him a disapproving glare and goes back to her paperwork.

After a few minutes, she feels him slink off, but she's afraid he hasn't actually left. Just relocated.

She needs to finish quickly, so she can get him out of here before he does any damage.

* * *

Beckett gets a summons on her phone from Esposito, frowns at the terse command.

_Locker room. Get your ass down here._

Locker room?

She closes the file in front of her, slaps a post-it note reminder on it for tomorrow, then shuffles it to the back of the stack. But when she opens the next one and goes to check on the status of her warrant request, she gets another text.

From Ryan.

_Men's locker room. This is freaking me out._

Freaking him out?

Kate sighs and stands up, minimizes her NYPD network portal, and then heads for the stairs.

She wonders if Castle is a part of this, or if he truly went home.

* * *

Huh.

That's. . .not good.

"Are you sure?"

Ryan's nod is so adamant that she's afraid he'll sprain something in his neck.

"Okay. So. . .Castle found a camera in the showerhead. With his SpyFinder."

Ah, the SpyFinder. Which was eighty bucks online, but she spent the money knowing that even if it's bogus, peace of mind is worth a lot. Plus the chance to finally laugh about it with him.

"He found a _camera_ in the _showers_, Beckett." Esposito is growling as he stalks in front of the long row of mustard yellow lockers. The women's locker room had a face lift about ten years ago, but apparently the men's never did.

"He did, huh," she says slowly. "So. . .where is Castle right now?"

"Checking out the women's."

"What?"

"It's okay. It's empty."

She narrows her eyes at him, but just then, Castle comes bouncing through the door, giddiness on his face. She has to press her lips together to keep from smiling. It wouldn't be _with_ him, it would be _at_ him.

"Nothing. It's clear. Beckett! Did you see what I found? I spy with my little eye-spy-finder-"

"Castle. Let me see this camera you found," she interrupts. "I want a look at it."

"We left it in," Ryan answers. "Preserve the crime scene."

"It's not a crime scene," she growls, following Esposito as he wordlessly leads her back to the showers.

"Not yet," Castle chirps.

Chirps. He is entirely too happy about this.

She kind of likes it.

When Esposito gestures to the long row of partially-partitioned showerheads, she realizes someone is back here, at the far stall, the water running weakly down the drain. She turns and lifts an eye at Ryan - the one she figures should've known better by now - and he stammers with a blush.

"Uh. Just. . .don't look."

"You can look," Castle says. "It's just Franklin."

"Ew." She glares at him. "I don't wanna see Franklin naked."

"No, no," he laughs, a bright huff of air as he leans into her. "No, I mean. Franklin is a never-nude."

"Never-nude! Man, I _loved_ that show." Ryan is high-fiving Castle with a beaming look.

"What show?" she gripes. "Let's get back to-"

"Jason Bateman, my alter ego. Come on. You've seen 'Arrested Development'. Haven't I _made_ you watch it?"

"I've never seen it. Castle, the camera. Focus."

"Oh, it's in focus," he leers.

She rolls her eyes and turns to Esposito, the only one not sucked in by Castle's crazy vortex of endless pop culture references and terrible puns. "Espo."

"Here. Look." He steps up against the half-wall that blocks this shower from the next, and then reaches up to showerhead. She realizes it's halfway pulled out of the wall, and behind the rusted metal facing is a small, faintly rectangular piece of. . .black something.

"Huh."

"Yes!" Castle crows. "Look at that. That is not supposed to be there."

"A camera in a shower?" she muses. As she leans in closer, studying it, she can't fathom how that would be safe. Even if someone did sneak a camera into the guys' locker room, having it run behind the showerhead - just the moisture, the steam-

Oh. Ha.

"It's not a camera," she says.

"Of course it is-"

"It's not a camera," she laughs, reaching out for the black thing attached to the back of the showerhead. When she flicks her nail over it, she wrinkles her nose as some of the black comes off in her hands, disintegrating. "See?"

"What. . .what is that?"

"It's a dead insect. Maybe a roach. Beetle. Something."

"Oh, that is nasty." Ryan shudders and backs away.

Castle blinks slowly at her. "But. Does this mean - the SpyFinder doesn't work?"

Crap.

"It works," Esposito says forcefully. "It found a bug alright. Just a different kind of bug."

Kate presses her lips together, arches an eyebrow to see if that will fly.

Castle looks suspicious, but he studies the black SpyFinder in his hand and then seems to accept that. Probably because he wants to believe in the magical properties of the SpyFinder.

Kate gives Esposito a grateful flash of her eyes. He does a brisk head nod, flexes his fist as he crosses his arms.

"It works," she confirms, reaching out to turn Castle around. "But I think it's time for us to go home."

"Yeah," he says slowly, turning his head to look one more time. "Yeah, okay."

SpyFinder.

She leads him out of the men's locker room, and he glances back only once. Just when she thinks she's got him docilely following along, he grips her elbow and pulls her up short.

"Hey, wait."

She takes a breath, certain the whole illusion will unravel.

"Can we try out my Spy Finder in the sparring rooms? Espo and Ryan and I didn't get that far."

Kate rolls her eyes but sighs a reluctant agreement. "Sure, Castle. Let's go look."

"Awesome. I _so_ hope there are cameras in there."

"Lot of sweaty men use that practice room, Castle."

He wrinkles his nose, dismisses that with a gesture of his hand. "I'd just fast forward."

She raises an eyebrow and he backpedals.

"Just until I got to yours. No one else's. Of course. Just you."

Uh-huh.


	13. Dec 12 - One day like this

_December 12 - One day like this a year will set me right_

* * *

She fingers the shiny new silver key to his loft, hesitates in the hallway. If he's changed the locks again, it will be some kind of omen. If she were as melodramatic as Castle, a locked door will portend baleful and mindless destruction, the end of all her hopes.

It's seven a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and it means too much to her to be turned back now.

But she's not as melodramatic as Castle.

Kate hooks her hair behind her ears and takes a breath, then pushes her key into the lock.

It turns - so smoothly, so easily - and she pushes open his front door.

The pale yellow morning has suffused the living room, touching lightly along the space, lapping at the floor. She leans back against the door to shut it softly, placing her bag down by the closet, shedding her coat and scarf and gloves.

Her boots come off, toes wriggling in her pale blue socks as she frees them, and then she stands in his hallway, finally here. She lets her mouth curl with a slow grin as she makes her way to his study.

Once there, she searches through his ipod, but he hasn't loaded the playlist on it, so she opens his laptop on his desk and finds it there instead. She hooks it up to the stereo system that travels through the main rooms, and plays today's song, low, barely discernible.

Soft.

She needs this day.

Kate moves quietly for his bedroom, slipping through the open doorway, stumbling for a moment in the near-darkness. She realizes with a shake of her head that Castle has pulled the Advent calendar right beside his bed - either supremely lazy or ridiculously excited. Or a combination of both.

Makes this easier though.

The song drifts around her, violin, piano, the steady beat and then the words that she can't help but drink in, all of it helping her shed the heavy weight of winter's expectations.

She just wants today.

In her leggings and wool socks, her sleep shirt, Kate crawls up the bed on all fours, her chest easing when his eyes slide open, blue skies waiting for the sun.

"Hi," she says quietly.

"Kate." He's not even confused - he's not even surprised to see her. It's like she's woken him from a dream of her to find her naturally there.

She leans in over him and her hair tumbles past her shoulders. Castle drags his hands up her sides to comb his fingers through her hair, snagging her cheek with his thumb.

"Morning," she breathes, dipping her mouth to meet his.

She nudges his nose as she lowers herself into bed with him. Castle is already fumbling at the covers to let her in; she slides beneath the sheet and lies on her side to watch him.

He turns to meet her, his fingers touching the sheet tucked up under her chin, skimming her lips. "You playing my song?" he says softly, and the music begins to filter back to her senses.

"Aren't I always playing your song?" she answers, smiling at the pleasure that flares in his eyes.

"What a line," he murmurs, laughter in his voice.

"You look in your Advent calendar this morning?"

"You found me in bed, Detective. What do you think?"

"Wasn't really a question. More like a suggestion."

Castle grins at her, eyes crinkling, and she can't help but reach out to touch his smile too.

"I noticed you pulled that calendar right up next to your bed, Castle. So hurry."

She watches him roll over, his pajama pants riding low on his hips, and she lets her fingers trail down the soft cotton of his green tshirt, realizes he's wearing red and green like the spirit of Christmas itself.

Kate props herself up at his back to watch over his shoulder as he opens the casement window of the pale blue tenement building. The smiling moon, the pale white stars, the snow. It's a beautiful work of art, this Advent calendar, and she presses her lips to his shoulder as he reaches inside number twelve.

His wide fingers come out with the ticket, and he turns his head to look at her, a question clouding the sky of his eyes.

* * *

Castle glances back to the ticket stub and reads

_one day like this a year will see me right_

and at that moment, the music drifting through his loft crescendos like the dawn, sudden and brilliant and illuminating.

Castle turns his head to her again to find Kate has risen up behind him, braced at his shoulder to watch, some of that morning light slipping past his shades and touching her hair. He opens his mouth but she shakes her head, her eyes on him.

_Just listen_, she seems to be saying.

He lets the sound surround him, her hand-made ticket still between his fingers, watches the wave of her hair made golden by the valiant sun, the dark glint of her eyes framed by lashes which sweep her cheeks with every insistent cry of the violins.

It's beautiful. All so beautiful.

She curls her fingers at him and Castle turns in the bed, reaching for her waist and pulling her hips in close. She settles in, arms sliding through his and hooking at his back, pressing her chest to his and humming at his neck. The bed is warm with her in it.

"One day," she sighs.

"It's a ticket," he murmurs at her temple, smiling at the way she shifts closer and closer. "You're giving me a ticket to Wednesday?"

"No. Me. Just one day with you, Castle. That's what I want for Christmas."

He laughs softly. "It's not Christmas yet, Beckett. Got thirteen more days."

"Before everything else - the traditions and the presents and the _pressure_-"

"No pressure, Kate," he says quietly, drifting a kiss to her cheek. "Last Christmas was our first, the hard one, so this one can be anything we want it to be."

"Last Christmas I worked-"

"And you're working this one too. I know."

She nods into him, but her arms tighten around his back. "That's why I want today. Now. Just a day with you, Rick."

He buries his nose in the hair at her temple, smelling the rich and evocative scent of her. "What are we doing today?" he asks, parting his mouth to taste her.

She tightens her hold on him and he can feel her shrug. "Up to you. All you, Castle. Take me anywhere you want. Or nowhere at all."

He pulls back to look at her, the way peace shimmers across her face like a thing she is trying so desperately to hold onto.

"Okay. Anywhere and nowhere, Kate."

* * *

It's not even cold because the sunlight is fiercely demanding entrance to the world. They'd woken naturally after that seven a.m. surprise visit, the bed too warm with both of them in it, and he'd taken her out for breakfast.

She munches on her toast as they sit at a table in the sun, the window warm to the touch of his shoulder, cramped in the crowed deli. Kate's fingers caress his on top of the formica, loose and slow, no rhythm to it, and he eats his eggs sunnyside up, just to be different.

She's practically purring in the light, her eyelids drifting shut every now and then, her piece of toast held up but not moving, as if she's absorbing the warmth. She's barely touched her breakfast, but she's on her second cup of coffee.

He likes that he knows that she probably ate before she slinked into his bed, likes knowing her habits and how she'll react, what life with her is like. He'll be stopping all day to let her graze - an apple at the winter market, a whole grain bagel at the deli on Fifth, a snack from the drug store when they stop, inevitably, so he can get them bottles of water. He's learned, over the years, how to take care of her in the ways she needs or will let him.

A big breakfast is mostly for him.

"So what do you want to do next?" he asks, wiping his mouth with the cloth napkin. Her fingers twitch in his on the table.

"I'm up for whatever. You choose."

She really doesn't want to care about it, think about it, does she? She wants to be led, wants to trust him to show her a good time. Easy answer is to go back home and lounge around together, but he thinks a day out in the city is something they might both need.

"Okay. Let's walk off breakfast."

She eyes his plate, a flicker of a smile slipping across her lips. "Well, you maybe-"

He interrupts, lets her know he's thought of this already. "Food carts in Central Park. Hot pretzels."

"Mm, okay. I'm all yours."

He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his wallet even as she's doing the same. They combine their cash, manage to tip generously enough to alleviate his conscience but not violate her sense of work ethic, and then he leads her out of the deli and into the warm sunshine.

She shivers and zips up her jacket, pushes their joined hands into his wider, deeper coat pocket, stepping close as they pause on the sidewalk.

He can feel the moment her fingers touch the paper in his coat, and her mouth curls into a questioning smile as she pulls it out.

"This is-" She pauses as she skims the words.

The poem she gave him for December 10th. He's kept it near, close at hand, and he watches her reread it as he flushes with ridiculous embarrassment. She gave him the poem, 'Love Song: I and Thou'; it's not like he's the one who's being sentimental.

_I can't do everything myself._

She slides the poem back into his pocket without a word, but her fingers lace with his, her body closer. He unhooks his sunglasses from his shirt, puts them on only to see her doing the same. Their looks clash; he can't see her eyes, but he can see that soft and pleased smile.

She nudges his hip. "Central Park, Captain."

He squeezes her hand on a little growl. "You know what that does to me."

"And yet, in my Nebula-9 outfit-"

"And now you've ruined the moment. Thanks, Beckett."

He turns and pulls her down the sidewalk towards the park, her laughter rich and low and floating on behind him, swirling in the eddies of December air.

* * *

She oofs as his hands push her shoulders with force, but the wind catches her breath and her hair, her legs out as she swings. She feels his third push a little harder, accompanied by that dizzying rush of ascension, the pinnacle of momentary timelessness, and then the drag back to earth as the swing pendulums and takes her with it.

The chains are brutally cold against her fingers, and she lets go one hand at a time to squeeze the circulation back in them, the seat rocking and off-balanced as she leans to one side. Castle pushes with the tips of his fingers now, just to keep her momentum going, and then he moves to sit down in the swing beside her.

They were just cutting through the playground on the way to a food vendor he remembers just past the ball fields, they were just hand in hand, moseying down the path when she saw the bright scarves, the red cheeks, heard the ceaseless calls and cries, and then the green playground equipment on the horizon.

He's watching her, she knows. That's okay. Let him look and see - see what a good day does to her, what he's a part of, what they make together.

Let him know.

* * *

She throws her trash away and he finishes the last of the chunk of pretzel she gave him, licks his fingers for the butter and salt. Kate holds out a napkin but he shakes his head, is glad to taste the last of it, watches her throw that away too.

She waits on him for direction and he has to decide _what now_ before the delay makes her restless. She likes action and results, loves accomplishing a task, and so he wants to have today be her kind of day - not that they will really be doing anything vital, but that she'll never feel like she ought to be doing something else.

He wipes his hand against his jeans then takes hers, and she huffs at him, her nose wrinkling in silent disgust. He wriggles his fingers, the ones he licked, yes, and figures she's had worse. And more of his bodily fluids than that if she's counting-

She laughs, bumps shoulders with him. "I got it. Gross."

And really, he hasn't said a word.

He loves when she wrinkles her nose. It's taken him four and a half years to see it, to be allowed to see it, and it reinvents the idea of her in his head. Every time.

Kate Beckett wrinkles her nose at him.

What else will Kate do? Have, be, want, ask?

With her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her feet in those black, low-heeled boots, her leather jacket - she is both trendy and classic, an embodied artistic impression of soft femininity and dominant industrialism - the power inherent in both.

And now he knows where he wants to take her.

* * *

She's had a sense of what he's been seeking after all day, but it doesn't settle into words until she sees, inside the Guggenheim, the massive sculptural carpet _Sandstars_.

Taxonomically arranged, accompanied by large-scale grid-worked photos on the walls, the installation is composed of detritus that washed up on the beach in Mexico at a wildlife reserve. She stands stunned in front of what amounts to trash spread across the floor - but objects which nature took back, reclaimed, washed clean and smooth, and then gave over to the shore like a gift.

Glass bottles, light bulbs, buoys, tools, stones, oars, water bottles, a milk crate, broom, half of a surfboard, basketball, pylons, bricks, plastic tubs, car battery-

Endless. Refuse. Arranged by size and color in rows, order given to natural and unnatural chaos. The glass gleams like jewels, the every day items now strange treasures. The wood - fence posts, drift, and tree limbs alike - have been given a grey hue and polished to a shine by the tides, arranged now like whale bones discovered in the sand.

This is what Castle is looking for. A way to make art out of the everyday horror that washes up in their lives - the broken bodies discovered on beaches, the blood and the victims and the grief. The murderers who meant it and the ones who didn't, the ones who escaped without consequences, the victims left voiceless.

It can be done. Gabriel Orozco's work displayed here means it can be done.

There is hope.

* * *

When Castle finds her in front of the beach detritus, he stumbles to a stop, stunned both by her arresting beauty and the reflection of that beauty in the sculpture before them. Natural, unnatural, feminine and industrial, the paradox of debris supplanted by a power too great for it and so reclaimed.

He doesn't want to move her, but he wants to share. Come inside.

"Kate," he calls and reaches out to clasp her hand. She turns to look at him over her shoulder, backlit by photographs of beach and blue plastic, driftwood framing the dark outline of her eyes.

"Hey," she greets him. "Isn't it just. . ."

"Yeah," he replies.

"I feel like this," she says, so softly. So softly and nothing more.

"Reclaimed," he offers, not a question, never a question.

"Do you?" she asks, hesitant and hurting. For him.

He watches the play of gallery lights in her eyes as she turns her head to seek his gaze. Her fingers twitch in his, prompting answer.

"Getting there, Kate. Christmas helps." Advent helps.

"That's all I ask."

Because they are alone before this beauty, Castle leans in and kisses her, delicate, respectful, thankful.

And she gives him so much more.


	14. Dec 13 - Your world will be changed

_December 13 - Your world will be changed forever_

* * *

Kate gets the search warrant at seven that morning and texts Castle to meet the team at their suspect's address - _do not go inside -_ and they're ready to roll.

The man in Central Park was drowned by his mistress, dragged to the ball fields by her and her brother. So is their theory. Her day off yesterday didn't put too much of a hinder on the investigation, and Esposito and Ryan had her filled in before six. The early start has her drowning herself in coffee, but it's worth it.

She pulls up at the address with lights but no sirens, Espo and Ryan coming in right behind her, and she gets out of the car to find Castle waiting.

Hands are shoved deep in his pockets against the lick of light rain; he hunches his shoulders as she comes closer, like he wants to block the wind for her. She lets herself slip into the shadow of him, giving him a good morning lift of her mouth and leaning in for more.

Her eyes must close as she comes for a kiss because the next thing she knows, something cold and rubbery is flicking against her lips, making her startle back, and she can hear Esposito hooting with laughter.

She opens her eyes to Castle.

The neon green and orange rubber frog she placed in his Advent calendar is staring back at her, and behind it, Castle's mischievous face. He squeezes it again and the tongue unrolls like a party horn, touches her cheek.

"I kissed a princess?" His eyebrows wriggle.

"You kissed a detective, sorry. Means you're still a toad, Castle." She tilts her head and closes her hand over his, pushes it towards his pocket. "Put that away. Not in front of the kids."

Ryan moans in unappreciation and Esposito snorts, turning away from them, reaching behind him to check his weapon. He nudges Ryan and nods briskly to the apartment building. "Since Mom and Dad want to play, let's serve a search warrant."

Kate smirks and catches Castle's eye; he only grins back, the little frog put away, but there's something soft and hopeful and visionary in his eyes.

When they troop up the stairs inside the walk-up, coats open and sweat starting to form by the fifth floor landing, Castle leans in with a hand at her back.

Knowingly, she pauses in her climb, letting Ryan and Esposito get a few steps ahead of them, and then Castle's mouth is at her ear.

"All I can think about-"

She quirks an eyebrow. Is he really going there right _now?_

"Is just how much fun Christmas is with that little kid excitement, when they come down the stairs that morning and see-"

"No." She turns swiftly, gripping the wrist of the hand that touches her, shaking her head. "Not - not right now. I can't have a conversation like this while I'm at work. Can't even think - just not now."

He shakes his head. "It's not a conversation. Just a. . .song in my head, Kate. A story that hasn't been written."

She stares at him, but he's giving her his careful smile. Not a conversation. A story.

"Okay," she breathes out. "Let's serve our warrant, so I can go home early."

"Actually, before we go home, I have plans for you."

* * *

He finds himself reaching into his pocket to touch the little green and orange frog, the silliness of the gift making him smile whenever he does. It's the combination of today's song and the look on her face when he kissed her with the frog - it's like an automatic and instant dose of ridiculous magic.

Probably her intention; he'll concede. Totally what she's going for. It's like when she wore that terrifying Nebula-9 mask. It's like when she messed with him about boobs in his face. She's taking something a little twisted and making it seem more straight. Or the reverse, taking the things that seem too straight - too pure, too much, too close - and giving them both just enough laughter to twist each other closer.

He's noticed that's her m.o. with him. Giving him just a little bit more of herself, asking for more from him, one story at a time, one slow reveal after another.

When she finally turns to him with that quicklime grin, cementing his heart to hers and limelighting the precinct-

jeez, he's sappy today. It's the song. It's that adorable, silly song and the children's voices and the frog and the way she looks at him.

"Ready to go, Castle?"

"Yeah," he scrapes out, lifting to his feet and taking her leather jacket from her arm, opening it up. She turns and slides into the sleeves, lets him flip up her collar even though she gives him a roll of her eyes for it. He tugs her around and hangs on to her lapels, studies the fall of her hair past her collar, the shadowed valley of her neck.

"You said you have plans?" she murmurs, the slight frown coming to her forehead first, drifting down to her eyes and then settling in her mouth. "Because you know Alexis is coming over."

"She is?"

Kate bites her bottom lip. "Yeah, I was afraid this might happen. I should've-"

"No, it's okay. Just tell me how much time I have before then."

She checks her father's watch, hair falling forward to block her face, a little shrug. "Mm, couple hours."

"Perfect."

She lifts her head, cheeks a little flushed, and he gets to watch her frown lift away, mouth first as her lips part, then the color in her eyes, the smooth line of her forehead - a whole face smile, a little teasing, a little appreciative, a lot beautiful.

"Perfect?"

"Yes. Just enough time. Come on, we're Christmas shopping."

* * *

She lifts her eyebrows when he takes her to that studio jeweler they passed last month - month before, something. He pushes open the door even when she stumbles to a halt on the sidewalk.

"Castle?"

"More specifically, your Christmas present, Kate."

"What?"

Castle only tugs her by the ends of her scarf and into the studio. It's not crowded, but all the employees are busy helping customers, and she hesitates.

"Castle."

"Christmas. Missed out on getting you something for your birthday."

She bites her bottom lip, feels his hands at her hips as her eyes wander the room.

"You know you want to. You were the one who not-so-subtly hinted, Kate Beckett."

"Yeah, but. . ." _That was before Tyson set you up._

His thumb brushes at her hip, up under her sweater where she can feel each whorl. "Wanted to do this before, Kate. Had some ideas and. . .But now, looks like you need to be with me so I've got an alibi."

The laughter swells up and chokes her, but he only gives her that adorable, little boy smile. Such a sharp and fragile contrast to the scene in that jail cell, such a tentative and hopeful peace they've made.

She takes in a deep breath and turns in the loose loop of his arms. He's trying - so can she.

"Okay. I'll look. But - I want it to be a surprise. So you have the final say, Castle."

* * *

In his kitchen, she can't stop smiling to herself. It makes her nervous, the not knowing but knowing some, and she has that stupid _Can I have a pony?_ feeling in her stomach like when she was five and Santa Clause was the magic that everyone else believed in, and so-

And so maybe.

Maybe. Since they all believed it so sincerely, so adamantly, maybe it could happen.

Castle's fingers stroke the hair back from her face and she lifts her head, bites her bottom lip at that look in his eye. Her hands are messy with flour or else she'd touch him, bring him in closer.

"When's Alexis-"

The front door scrapes open and he laughs, thumb nudging her cheek as he turns around to greet his daughter.

Kate keeps measuring flour, gets everything ready.

* * *

Alexis sweeps her back and pins it again; Kate shakes her head at her.

"I know. I should just pull it up. Keep it out of the dough."

Kate laughs. "But it looks so pretty like that, I understand."

The front door opens and they both glance up, Kate able to see Alexis's mirroring anticipation from the corner of her eye as Castle comes through.

"I found it," he calls, holding the bag up triumphantly. "Fancy baking powder."

"Fancy?" Alexis wrinkles her nose. "Whatever. Bring it over. We need it."

Castle makes his way towards the kitchen, fishes out the can of baking powder and sets it between them, kissing Alexis's cheek, then turning to Kate to repeat the action. She pops flour on his nose instead and his surprise makes him stumble back.

Alexis laughs, catching him, and Kate smirks. "Peck on the cheek? Not-uh. You can do better than that."

Castle's grin widens across his face, eyes crinkling, and he leans in close, nuzzles his nose against hers, slow and seductive, dipping down to her mouth until-

"Ew, gross," she grumbles, pushing him back to wipe flour off her lips.

"You asked for it."

Kate eyes the bowl of sifted flour, but suddenly a pale hand is snatching it away.

Alexis huffs at them. "No food fights with the cookie dough."

* * *

His daughter is still at the kitchen table with the last full cookie sheet, spooning out almond filling onto the round circles of dough. Kate pushes Castle off of her, nudging him by the hip towards the dirty dishes in the sink.

"Do your part or no cookies for you."

"Hey, I was the one who went emergency grocery shopping."

"You were also the one who looked over the recipe and swore up and down that you had everything we needed," she shoots back.

He bumps her shoulder, hands already reaching for the sudsy water and the mixing bowl drowned there, but he watches her make her way towards his daughter, swiping at a bubble on her cheek. He put it there, but he thought she didn't notice.

She sits down with Alexis and takes another spoon out of the can of almond filling, says something that makes his daughter laugh, and they both turn their heads to give him shared smiles.

He drops his head and does the dishes, the last of the washing up, half-listening to Kate and Alexis finish the final batch of Christmas cookies. The water is too hot for him, so he runs a little cold, eyes lifting again towards them.

Kate's job was rolling the dough and cutting out the circles, placing them on cookie sheets for Alexis to fill and fold. He's manned the oven, taking them out before they can burn, sliding the spatula under the soft dough, putting in a new pan. He expected to be shut out of the cookie making, left on the outside of things, but that never happened. Kate pushed the cookie tray into his hands and said _eight minutes_.

He rinses the first mixing bowl, lays it in the drying rack, reaches for the next one. Alexis is giggling and leaning back in the chair, the spoon of almond filling dipping treacherously towards her hair. Kate snatches it away, scoffing at her, laughing back, waves the spoon in her face.

It's been awkward between them, but hopeful. And tonight he's seen Kate relax, be natural, and of course Alexis has responded to that. His daughter can be reserved and so can Kate-

"Castle."

He jerks his head up and realizes the oven timer is blaring, both women looking at him with a raised eyebrow, twin smirks.

Castle turns to the oven with still-wet hands, presses the timer off, then feels Kate at his back, checking. He twists around and flicks water in her face, making her huff and jerk away, but he smirks and elbows her aside.

"Let me do my job."

She steps back, gestures for him to continue, and he snags the oven mitts, opens the oven door.

"Last tray," Alexis calls out, coming into the kitchen with the cookies. He settles the hot one on top of the oven and takes Alexis's, pushes it onto the rack and shuts the door.

"Last tray," Kate murmurs, such a sense of pleased pride in her voice that he has to turn and look at her.

Alexis threads her arm through Kate's, lays her head on Kate's shoulder, and Castle pauses, waiting.

"Time for a story, Dad."

Kate's smile slips through, and her shoulders ease. "A story?"

"Remember?" Alexis says. "We did it like this last year. Your Christmas tradition, and now ours."

"Oh," she says softly, and he sees the surprise flicker in her eyes.

"Thought that's why you've been storytelling all day." He smiles at her and takes the spatula off the counter. "Alexis, go get the book. Soon as I put the cookies on the cooling rack, I'll start it."

Alexis withdraws from Kate's arm, comes in to kiss his cheek, then disappears back towards his office.

Kate nudges up at his side while he starts scraping off the cookies.

"You guys read _A Christmas Carol, _right?"

"Yeah."

"I can-"

"The next word better not be _go_." He lifts an eyebrow at her, scoops the last of the cookies onto the cooling rack.

"No," she murmurs. "Just gonna ask if I can sit with you."

"With-with me, or beside me?"

She laughs, knocks her head into his shoulder. "Beside you, Castle. Just beside. Not sitting in your lap. You may be about as jolly as Santa, but you're not nearly as fleshy. Thank goodness." She lifts onto her toes and presses a kiss into his mouth, her tongue playing at his lips as her fingers pinch his sides. "Though it's tempting to try to get myself on the naughty list."

"That is all kinds of wrong." He drops the spatula and slides his arms around her, fingers nudging under her sweater to the bare skin of her back, and then leans in for a deeper kiss.

"Hey, you two. I got the book. Keep it PG, will ya?"

Kate laughs into his mouth and pushes him away, pink in her cheeks but her lips still smiling as she turns towards Alexis.

"PG. Promise."

"Can't promise," Castle says heartily, earning a slap against his chest.

Alexis comes to him and pushes the Dickens Christmas book against his torso. "Come on, Dad. Christmas tradition."

He grins at her and gives Kate a jerk of his head. "Living room. Let's go."

* * *

_"__Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. __Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail."_

Kate snorts. "No wonder you love this story so much."

"Hush, I'm reading."

She digs her toes into the end of the couch, her back against his side, and twists her head on his shoulder to look at him. On his other side, Alexis is curled up close, her eyes getting heavy, and they haven't made much past the first page.

"All your brand of punny."

"Oh, ho, ho, ho-"

"What'd I tell you about Santa?"

"You don't believe in Santa anyway," he huffs at her. Kate laughs and tucks her chin into her chest.

"Read, Dad. Don't let Kate distract you."

He grunts and starts the book back up and Kate leans her cheek against the couch, equally as worn out as Alexis. Thursday night and they've been making cookies for four hours. Her back aches from standing over the counter and rolling the dough, and her fingers are cramped from the repetition.

But the sound of Castle's voice is numbing and warm, his body at her spine like a life-sized heating pad, and the decaf coffee cradled in her lap is doing the last of the job of sending her over the edge.

She drifts in and out of sleep, her head nestled on the couch, and catches only a few words here and there of the story he tells - children and Christmas, the blessings of spirits, and the power of living with open hands, open heart.

_"He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness."_


	15. Dec 14 - I shared

_December 14 - I shared an hour with the minutes. . .turned it into days and weeks_

* * *

It's just a pillow on his leather sofa in the study. A single strand of dark hair and the impression of her head, and the ring left on the windowsill where she must have left her coffee mug this morning while she-

what? Daydreamed out the window before work?

She fell asleep at his shoulder last night around nine; he was reading Dickens, no surprise there, and he had to wake her after Alexis went upstairs to bed. She listed to one side as he walked her down the hall to his bedroom, and she crawled under the covers like a child.

But at some point, she must have woken too early and brought her pillow out here to the couch at the window and sipped her coffee and enjoyed her morning.

And even though it's eight o'clock and she's been gone for hours now - she said she wanted to get in to work at five so they won't be driving too late tonight - even though the ring on his windowsill probably won't come out, even though the pillow looks lonesome and battered, Castle leaves it there.

She didn't wake him; she didn't need to.

She's at home here. She comes and goes as she pleases.

* * *

_Morning._

Her text back is slow in coming. He's already showered and dressed.

_Waiting on a warrant. _

He lifts an eyebrow and uses one finger to message her, his other hand occupied with his breakfast. _I didn't ask how was your morning or what your morning consisted of, Beckett._

She texts back and he can hear the snark in her voice.

_Morning was too ambivalent. Could be anything, Writer Boy._

And then a few seconds later.

_Hope it doesn't rain all day. _

He glances to the windows, but it's not raining that he can tell. Castle gets up from the bar stool and bumps his knee on the dining room table as he heads for the window. Oh, actually, looks misty out there.

_Haven't opened today's yet. Delaying gratification._

He turns back for his coffee mug, takes it to the windows as well, leaning a shoulder against the cold pane as he watches the world get wet. He wonders, idly, if this is what she did this morning too. Drifted. It's nice.

_You're good at that - I should know._

He's good at-

Oh, ha. _Dirty mind, Detective._

_Let me know when you've opened today's window. Wanna share in all that. . .gratification._

* * *

Kate narrows her eyes at the murder board, but it's the last of it. She has the eraser in her hand, the neat lines of red and black dancing in front of her, but she hesitates.

She's not sure why.

"Yo, Beckett."

She turns her head to Esposito.

"Bryant just left for Rikers."

"Good," she says, nodding in satisfaction. Easy case - furious, cuckolded husband strangled his adulterous wife. Despite the solve coming together so nicely, despite it allowing her the opportunity to get home at a decent hour most of this week, it doesn't sit well.

Just one that got to her. No real reason. Maybe because it's only a handful of days away from Christmas, maybe it's the cold and the rain today, maybe it's the school shooting they heard about at lunch, or maybe it's just the specter of death looming before an important weekend, death ever-present and haunting. Loss.

Kate grunts and slaps the eraser to the white board, scrubs it out, all of it, every element of murder.

Her phone rings and she snags it, answers without looking because she knows who it is.

"Alexis is here," he says without preamble.

"I'm on my way."

"So you guys-"

"Yes. We conspired," she answers.

"I figured as much." He sounds happy. "I'm. . .excited. And a little nervous, Beckett."

She laughs into the phone, tugging her coat off the back of her chair, gathering her keys. She logged off her computer an hour ago, just to keep herself from going back to it, and now she slings the coat over the case box and pushes her phone to her ear with her shoulder.

"But mostly excited?"

"Yeah, mostly. And Alexis says to hurry because there's a schedule?"

"I'm hurrying. Thirty minutes." She takes up the box and heads for Esposito's desk, nods to the paper box when he looks up at her.

"I'll take it to evidence," he sighs.

She grins at him, winks; Esposito grumps at her but shoos her away.

"Okay, I'm headed out now," she promises.

"Uh, Alexis is hustling me out the door."

"Yeah. I need to meet you guys there. I told her that already."

For today's gift.

_Make someone's Christmas._

It's a little silly, a little sentimental even, but she feels like the world needs it - today of all days.

* * *

Alexis nudges his shoulder as they stand on the sidewalk at Lexington Avenue, waiting on Kate. His daughter won't let him go any farther down the street, but a massive, sprawling church lies just past them, banners fluttering at the cornice over the entrance, a wreath startlingly green against the red door.

And there's Kate, coming from the direction of the subway stop, scraping a hand through her hair and holding it back off her face as the wind kicks up. The mist has started up again, but it's not too bad, and as she comes closer, he can see rain sparkling in her hair like ice.

"Hey," she calls to him, to both of them, and greets him with a lean in and a kiss.

Alexis has her arm hooked through his, and she and Kate together turn him around and head for the church.

"What are we-"

Oh. Now that they're closer he can read the banners fluttering in the rainy wind.

_Citymeals._

"Meals-on-wheels, Castle." Kate's hand travels the down inside of his arm, strokes his palm before tangling with his fingers. "We have a schedule to keep, so hustle."

* * *

Alexis leans against his shoulder as they listen to the closing spiel given by the director. Then they watch volunteers pre-package the food in the church's kitchen, speak with a few of Citymeals's staff, and visit with an older gentleman who makes a regular pilgrimage each Friday night help with the meals. His elderly father received meals before he died, he tells them, and he likes to say thank you.

Castle pulls out his wallet while Kate and Alexis are in the kitchen gathering details and directions from the volunteer there. He stays the director with a hand to her forearm.

"You said the meals - mostly it's run on donations?"

"Yes, sir. We provide nearly 17,000 homebound elderly New Yorkers with nutritious meals every single day, but-"

"You said it's around three dollars a meal."

"Well-"

"Take this then." He smiles at her, his good smile, and she flushes but takes the money he's handing over. Nearly two thousand - he came prepared, because of Kate's note - and the director's mouth drops.

"Sir, I-"

He shakes his head and slides his wallet back into his pocket just as Kate calls out to him from the kitchen. He heads for her and his daughter, leaving the director out in the hall. He and Alexis usually try to do something anonymous for their Christmas giving, but this is Kate's idea, and the money is really the least he can do.

Soon they're packing the microwave containers into insulated bags and putting them into the back of a white van that Citymeals provides, stacks and stacks of food. Kate gives him the keys, probably because she has the directions, the GPS pre-programmed by the volunteer coordinator, and when they pull up to their first stop, his palms are sweating.

Not nerves. Excitement.

There are actually five people in this neighborhood that need dinner tonight, and Alexis is already hopping out and heading for the back. Kate snags his coat sleeve before he can move, her lips pressed together.

She's the one who's nervous.

"After the hurricane, it seemed like there were just so many needs," she starts, biting her bottom lip and then pushing it out again.

He nods; he watched some of the relief concert last night while she slept.

"You don't mind?" she murmurs suddenly.

"Mind?"

"That it's not exactly anonymous. And that Alexis and I planned without you-"

"No, no. Never," he says, can hear how ardent his voice is. "It's perfect."

She lets out a slow breath and with it, her smile comes to paint her face.

"Let's go then," she says.

* * *

Anne lifts a wavering hand in the darkness of her living room, the television blaring until her finger on the remote snaps it off. The sudden silence is a relief, and the elderly woman in her sagging, teal cotton dress smiles and waves them in.

"You all are new," she says with some delight, that smile getting ever wider.

Castle carries the insulated bag over his shoulder and approaches the woman in her easy chair. "Miss Anne, I'm Rick. Where do you want me to put this?"

"Oh, honey, wherever you can find space in that kitchen."

"Would you like me to heat it up for you now?"

"No, no. Not gonna waste the visit. You just come back on in here, sugar."

Kate flashes him a smirk, and he's certain that nickname will be coming back to haunt him later.

"I'm Kate, this is Alexis," he can hear Beckett saying, and he moves towards the kitchen to unpack Anne's dinner.

Her galley kitchen leaves little room to maneuver, and the countertops are covered in plastic containers, plates, glasses, a stack of napkins, a roll of plastic wrap, pie tins, and all kinds of things. He realizes after a moment that she's pulled down everything from the higher cabinets and placed them within reach.

Since he can hear Kate and Alexis entertaining Anne in the front living room, he quietly opens a few cabinets to confirm his theory, sighs as he sees the empty shelves. Everything is down here then. He wonders how Anne gets around her own apartment with all this cluttered in her way. Probably the only thing that works for her though, living on her own with limited mobility.

When he gets back to the cramped living room, Castle can't help taking note of the conditions. Anne sits in a faded green easy chair, mountainous and dark in the shadows, a tv tray pulled up next to her. On the tray are seven or eight pill bottles, a magnifying glass, a jumbo word search, a couple of glasses, and a clump of tissues.

Anne holds a hand out to him and he comes forward, shakes it as she hums at him. "Thank you, honey. I sure appreciate all you folks do. If I don't get these meals, Lordy, then I don't know. I am surely blessed. Surely blessed."

"Miss Anne was telling us about World War II," Alexis says brightly from a sheet-covered couch. He moves to sit beside her, catching Beckett's eyes as she sits in a stiff-backed dining room chair next to Anne.

Kate has both her hands in one of Anne's and the older woman comes back to rhythmically pat Kate's, as if consoling one or the both of them. A dim lamp behind Kate casts her face in shadows, but her hair glows like gold.

"Miss Anne," she says, her voice pitched perfectly so the woman can hear her. "You were telling us about your job."

"Oh, my. Those days, those days. My brothers were all at war, my mother wasn't healthy, and daddy was doing his best. You know how it is. So I got me a job."

Her voice fades and her eyes drift off into the distance.

"What job did you have?" Rick prompts. The volunteer coordinator told them that the elderly recipients need the conversation almost more than the food, and he can see it now, how delighted she is to have someone to talk to. "Miss Anne? What job did you get?"

"Sugar, I was a riveter."

Alexis giggles beside him. "Like Rosie?"

"You bet, honey. They called me Annie the Riveter, after that poster. I worked at Morganite Brush Company - they made war munitions then."

"Wow." Castle shakes his head and watches Anne's hands clench around Kate's. "A real riveter." What amazing stories this woman must have.

"I'm ninety years old, sugar. Ninety years. I been all across this country, but New York keeps pulling me back."

"Where else have you been, Miss Anne?" Kate says, and he sees her squeezing Anne's hands, gathering her attention. She's so good at this - it's not much different from questioning a victim's family members; it takes the same compassion and understanding, the same determination and patience.

He's always been a social person, but it's because he likes knowing people's stories, all the details, how they got here and why they got here and where they're going. And he likes their attention, being entertaining or clever, having people notice. But Kate actually likes people. She feels for people, walks right into their pain or their grief and shares it with them.

Alexis leans her head against his shoulder, twining her arm through his, and he glances down to see some of that same compassion and interest in his daughter's face.

Anne starts telling them a story about her train ride to California as the chaperone of a girl not two years younger than herself, and Kate says all the right things, makes those encouraging noises, and Castle hears Alexis joining in, doing the same, adopting Kate's mannerisms and her sensitivity.

And he thinks maybe this is the best gift they've given each other this year.

* * *

"She made a beautiful home, didn't she? A beautiful home." Leon trails off as he shuffles to a halt at the front door after having given them a slow tour of the apartment. His wife, Marian, died only four months ago, and Leon hasn't stopped talking about her since they arrived.

Castle has to clear his throat before he takes up the insulated bag and puts it over his shoulder.

"She made a beautiful home," Leon says again, glancing around the room with clouded eyes. "But she's gone. Not so beautiful now."

Leon turns back to the door, gnarled hands working at the chain lock. The three of them stand behind Leon, a little stunned, and Castle catches Kate half-turning away, the hunch of her shoulders, and then he hears Alexis behind him sniffling.

"Leon, my man, I think you're making my daughter cry." And Kate too.

Leon lifts a startled gaze up to Castle, a dry chuckle coming out of his throat. Castle winks and pats the 94 year old man on the shoulder.

Leon turns back to Alexis with a slow grin. "Ah, don't cry, doll. I only meant I'm a terrible housekeeper."

Alexis gives a laugh, and Castle sees Kate turning back to them, the shine in her eyes but her lips curling into a sad smile. Leon is opening the door carefully, shuffling back to let them leave. Castle shakes the man's hand as they go, the girls trooping out ahead of him and calling back good-byes. In the hallway, once Castle is certain he's heard Leon lock the door after them, they begin the long walk back to the van.

"Wow," Alexis says with a soft breath. Her eyes are damp when she turns to her father. "These people. . .all these people just in the same _block_."

Kate is nodding her agreement. "And how many volunteers. Meals every single day. I just-"

"They had some great stories," Castle sighs, trooping down the stairs after them. He can't fathom how Leon could ever get out of his apartment with these stairs. Well, that's the point of meals-on-wheels, right? They serve the homebound.

"You would-" Alexis is laughing at him, but she reaches back to hook her arm in his and kiss his cheek. "I gotta go, Dad. I'm meeting Max."

"Max?"

Kate shoots him a look, a wince on her face, and he realizes that Alexis has cleared this with _her_ and not him.

"Kate?"

She turns to his daughter. "Alexis?"

Alexis snorts at Kate as if to say, _wimp_, and turns to her father with a winning smile. "Max is. . .my boyfriend. Kate's already done a background check on him-"

Kate gasps, mouth dropping open.

"-so he's fine. Don't worry, Dad. Besides, you guys are heading to Kate's dad's place tonight."

"And _Max_ is why you're not coming with us?" Castle says, narrowing his eyes.

They get to the lobby of Leon's building and he opens the door without even looking, a gust of frigid air blasting through.

"No," Alexis huffs, moving past him and out onto the sidewalk. "The reason I'm not driving up with you but _coming up tomorrow morning_-"

"What a tone," he says sarcastically, but Kate's sliding her arm through his and bumping his hip. "Fine, you're coming up tomorrow morning. You remember how to-"

"Yes, Dad. Kate gave me directions too."

He glances over at Kate and she's _blushing_, which means what, he has no idea, only that she and his daughter have already talked about this, have apparently talked about quite a lot.

"Okay, Dad. I'm going to meet Max. You guys drive safely." She's squeezing his arm as she comes up to kiss his cheek again, her eyes so bright even in the wind battling at them, the mist blowing around their faces. He embraces her, watches Kate say her good-byes, and then it's just him and Kate standing outside the white, meals-on-wheels van.

Kate and his daughter have been conspiring quite a lot, huh? Well. It's nice. It's. . .not all on him anymore, is it? Alexis is a freshman in college, but now she's got Kate giving her directions to Jim's cabin and vetting her boyfriends and-

"Did you really do a background check on Max?"

She laughs, huddling into him so he'll block the wind, and she reaches up to pat his cheek.

She takes the keys from his coat pocket before he can move, heads towards the driver's side.

But she doesn't answer him either.

"Kate?"

"What do you think, Castle?"

Uh.

He has no idea.

But. _She might have._

And as he gets into the van with her and watches her drive them back to Citymeals, he can't help the stupid, cheesy thought that pops into his head-

Kate Beckett is a gift that keeps on giving.


	16. Dec 15 - When we quiet down

_December 15 - And when we quiet down, the house chants on without us_

* * *

When he wakes to the dark sounds of rain against the window, Castle sighs out a breath he must've been holding in his dreams and turns over. Kate is asleep on the far side of the bed, and he slides his hand across the sheets to run his fingers over her elbow. She doesn't stir, and he lets himself drowsily listen to the rain in the fir trees and the echo of their breathing through the room.

The cabin creaks around them, backhanded by a broad wind, and the wood shifts and moans. His body is heavy and heated, bordering on too much, but the cool air eddies around his neck, reminding him of how cold it is outside, how cold it is not in this bed with her.

The incessant wash of rain surrounds him, a tide dragging him off the shores of consciousness, and he floats there, letting it do all the work, letting awareness come and go like a wave.

He hears movement in the hallway, the sounds of water running, and it must be her father.

So Castle lifts his head and peers at the travel alarm clock, but it's early. Kate's still heavily asleep, so he just brushes a kiss to her forehead and turns on his other side, faintly feeling her warmth at his back.

He can see out the window like this, the drizzle still falling, the weeping conifers and their jeweled green branches nearly touching the ground under the weight of so much water. The sound of the rain is continuous and lulling, and even though he wants to dwell in it a little longer, he's seduced by sleep.

* * *

Kate shivers awake and opens her eyes to the glowing numbers of the clock and the heavy sounds of rain. Long drive last night, by turns a strange and stressful and beautiful week, and of course she's having trouble staying asleep. Of course. Never fails.

They packed in a hurry last night, so she runs through a list of things as she lies there, trying to remember what they might have forgotten. Toothbrush, deodorant, razor, her father's Christmas present, gloves. . .what else? Castle opted not to take the advent calendar because there just wasn't room, but he instructed her to clear out the gifts for the next few days and hide them in her bag. She didn't forget those.

She debates getting out of bed to set up today's on the bedside table for when he wakes, but it's still so early and she doesn't want to give up on sleep quite yet. She burrows back into the covers for warmth, pleased when she hits the hard and conversely soft edges of his body behind her.

Kate turns slowly onto her other side and worms in beside him, hides her nose in the crook of his elbow to warm it up. She startles when his arm moves, but relaxes into him even as he sleepily tucks her in close, his fingers drawing slow patterns against her back. She opens her eyes and presses a kiss to his shoulder, but his eyes are still closed.

"You awake?" she murmurs.

"Trying not to be."

She grins and closes her eyes herself, sliding a knee over his leg. She can relax; she will relax. She can feel it falling over her already. Her father will want them to make breakfast together, as usual, but when the coffee percolates, it will wake her in plenty of time.

For now, this. Lying in bed with Castle in her room at her father's cabin, fulfilling a promise she made a year ago.

It's a first in a long list of firsts, and the fact that they are here now, finally here, is what pushes her back into sleep.

* * *

"Morning, sunshine."

He cracks open an eye to see Kate sitting on the side of the bed, coffee mug pressed against her sternum. She brushes the hair out of his eyes with a soft smile.

"Morning," he says, has to clear his throat.

"You want breakfast?"

"You make it?"

"Dad and I did. And Alexis is here. We're all-"

"Alexis is here?" Castle jerks upright, and Kate lifts from the bed, holding her mug out to keep it from sloshing.

"She's here."

"What time's it?"

"Nine."

He hates being the last one to wake up, missing out. Castle puts his feet on the floor and stands, swaying when he gets tangled in the covers. She steadies him with a hand, cradling her coffee mug with the other.

"Can I eat before I shower?"

"Sure. You smell okay."

He huffs and she just grins back, leans in for a kiss, but he detours for her coffee instead, sipping it right from her hand, tilting the mug with two fingers until he's gulped down most of it. When he leans back, that slim arch of her eyebrow lets him know.

"You can get more," he reminds her.

"Might want to look on the bedside table, you thief. You have Advent to take care of." She pushes lightly on his chest. "And get some pants on." And then she saunters out of the room.

He glances down to the table with the alarm clock on it and sees instead a big red mug of steaming coffee (_oh, oops_), the curled up photo clue, and a happy little yellow plush thing. Castle leans over and plucks it from the stand. It looks like a sunnyside-up egg, but all yellow, little smiling face with eyes. It looks vaguely familiar. He reads the tag attached and yelps.

It's a plush microbe.

He goes running for the door, yanks it open, and Kate is standing in the hall, waiting on him with a huge grin on her face. She leans against the wall, hip cocked towards him, and he comes for her, fingers at that legging-clad hip.

"Kate Beckett."

She's trying to press her lips together to contain her smile. "Didn't I tell you to get some pants on before you came out here? Boxers aren't going to cut it."

He wags the plush microbe under her nose. "Kate Beckett, you gave me an STD for Christmas."

She laughs, coming towards him now with that whole-face smile, lit up for him. "Hm, it's possible I did."

"Herpes. Really."

"That's what it says."

"That's disgusting," he chides.

"And you love it."

He laughs back, leaning in to kiss her now that they both have coffee breath. Their lips meet and glance off, come back for another try. Her smile and his keep them from staying long, and she gently pushes him back with her coffee mug at his chest.

"Get dressed. We're all having breakfast."

"And you missed me."

"Not really."

But when she turns back for the kitchen, she's still grinning and so is he.

He can't help reaching out to pinch her ass as she leaves. "Better not have given me herpes."

"I just did."

"Not funny."

"So very, very funny, Castle. Besides, last year you gave me mono. I figure we're even."

* * *

Castle is actually a little pink there, she muses, watching him stack wood higher against his chest. Her father is chuckling at the yellow microbe gift that Alexis has been teasing Castle with, _look, Dad, I have an STD._ Kate's surprised that it's gone outside the circle of just the two of them, but she has to keep reminding herself that this is his family.

Their family.

Her father piles a last log onto the waiting stack in Castle's arms and then shoos Alexis away, guiding them all off the back porch and inside once more. Alexis holds the stuffed microbe like a teddy bear, tucked up against her, and she brings an effortlessness to their family interactions that Kate appreciates more and more.

She never expected for Alexis to actually make things easier on them.

Castle dumps the wood on the hearth at Jim's instructions, and the two of them crouch before the fireplace to start arranging the kindling into an elaborate and complicated pyramid.

Alexis bumps into Kate and hooks her arm around Kate's elbow. "We can make hot chocolate while they do. . .that."

"I think your dad's going to need help," Kate says, standing her ground.

Alexis pauses. "I think he can figure it out; your dad's helping him. Plus, I can teach you how to make the most-awesome hot chocolate ever - the Castle way."

Kate glances once more to Rick, his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, wood chips caught in the fabric, his hair a little shiny. Hmm, maybe because she kept running her fingers through it when they sneaked out behind the house-

"Yeah, good point," she says finally. "They'll be fine."

And well, maybe they're both learning something new. Castle will start a fire and Kate will make the most-awesome hot chocolate. Gender roles finally fulfilled.

So she follows Alexis into the kitchen, ready to be taught.

* * *

"Not bad," he admits, swirling his mug to keep the milk and coccoa together. "Not bad at all. I think you'll do."

Kate grimaces at him, a little wrinkle in her nose, and steps over his legs propped up on the coffee table to sit beside him on the couch. Alexis and Jim are in the kitchen getting their own mugs filled, and Kate leans into Castle with a sigh.

He turns his head and kisses her quickly on the cheek, just because she's there, and watches the shadows dancing on her face as the flames crest in the fireplace.

"You didn't compliment my manly fire," he nudges.

She startles a laugh, pressing her lips together again, but it's too late. He saw it; he heard it. The crunch and crackle of flame on wood, triumphant as it sounds, is nothing on making her laugh.

"Your manly fire," she murmurs, putting her lips to the mug.

Alexis comes into the room trailing Jim behind her, and Castle sees that now Jim Beckett has the herpes microbe under his arm. Jeez, are his ears pink? This is a little embarrassing. Funny, yes, sure. And he's glad everyone thinks so too, but come on.

Alexis sits on the ottoman pulled up close to the fire and places her mug on the hearth, her knees pressed together. Kate's father stands between his chair and the couch, surveying the scene, and Castle can't help but think the man is proud of how well the day has gone, how happy everyone is.

Castle's pretty proud of it himself.

"I'm glad you guys made it," Jim says, and then hands over the microbe.

Castle takes it, withdrawing his arm from around Kate to do so, and can't help the smirk that comes to his mouth.

Kate digs her elbow into his ribs; evidently she knows him too well, but he can't stop it.

"Oh look, Kate. Your dad just gave me an STD."

Jim is the first to burst into laughter, followed closely by Alexis, and Kate is burying her head against his shoulder and slapping his chest, but he just chuckles and nudges her away.

"I can't believe you said that."

Jim says suddenly, "Well, better than me saying it when Alexis handed it off to me."

Castle freezes, Kate freezes, but Alexis giggles so hard she falls off the ottoman and onto the floor.

Jim clears his throat. "Probably shouldn't have mentioned it?"

"Dad," Kate groans. "You're terrible. No more STD jokes."

"You started it," Castle says, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Dad," Alexis pipes up from the floor. "I think you started it. Last year. Remember? You gave her mono."

"At least it wasn't an STD," he grumbles, and glances over to see Jim sinking into his chair, both hands wrapped around his mug, that faintly proud smile ghosting his lips. Now Castle knows where Kate gets it from, that smiling without smiling trick.

It's good. The herpes microbe has managed to thoroughly and completely break the ice between all four of them.

Who knew?

* * *

Alexis lifts from the ottoman and heads back to the kitchen; Kate hears her rinsing out her mug and putting it in the sink. The girl comes back in and shifts foot to foot. "I think I'm going to bed. I want to check my email and stuff. Um. . .I saw you guys have wireless?"

Kate's father rouses from the chair and sits forward. "Yes, definitely. I can get you the password. I wrote it down somewhere. I'll find it."

Castle shifts beside Kate. "Alexis, pumpkin, why don't you just use your phone? Don't make Jim get up."

"Oh, well I wanted to skype with Max, and I need my laptop for that."

Jim is already up. "I don't mind. It's in the office. Oh, actually. I've got to add your MAC address to the list too. Protected network - Katie has me paranoid."

"Oh, no. I don't want to put you to that much trouble-" Alexis is saying, but Jim is already leading her back to his office.

"No trouble. Now who's this Max?" he says as they disappear down the hall.

Castle huffs a laugh next to Kate and turns back to her. "They're certainly getting along. I'm surprised by just how well."

Kate's pride flares up and she realizes it's for both of them - her father and Alexis both. "You do realize he's a father to a daughter. It's not that much of a stretch, Castle."

Rick turns back to her and laughs, leaning forward to put his mug on the coffee table. "You're right. Should've thought of that."

Kate pulls her knees up on the couch and slips her arm through his, the warmth of his body seeping down into her bones. He takes the mug from her fingers and puts it next to his own, then sinks back into the cushions, settling in with her.

"I thought this would be harder," she says quietly. "But it's gone really well."

"Even though it rained all day," he murmurs. "Actually the rain made it nice. Cozy."

She starts to roll her eyes at him but he's right; the constant wash of water through the gutters, the pattering against the windows, and the way the four of them have kept bumping up against each other every time they've turned around. It has been cozy.

"It's been a long time since my dad and I have. . .shared this," she says. She hates how wild her heartbeat is talking about this, how her palms start to sweat. She's not afraid; it just seems like she's taking a step into a great and unknown darkness.

"Been a while since you shared Christmas?" he clarifies. "Kate, only do as much as you can, as you want to do."

"I want to do this. That's - it's your whole advent calendar, you know. That's the point."

She can feel his grin against the top of her head. "I know," he says softly. "But no pressure."

Kate lifts her head to him, presses a slow kiss to his mouth, taking a long breath in of his woodsy, fire-and-chocolate smell. His fingers come to her jaw and his tongue slips past the seam of her lips, stroking lazily, languid, easy.

No pressure.

She loves him. For this, for being patient when she doesn't really deserve it, and for a whole tangled knot of reasons she can't decipher anymore. Her whole life is being bound up with his, one stitch at a time.

She only wants him to know it.


	17. Dec 16 - I'll be there

_December 16 - If you doubt that I'll be there, don't despair. Don't you dare._

* * *

"Katie. Go take a hike."

But her father's grinning as he puts the ham in the oven, and Kate is turning around and snagging Castle by the hand, dragging him towards the mudroom at the back. She gives him her father's heavy boots to put on and has some hiking ones of her own that she laces up.

"We really gonna take a hike, huh?"

"Yeah," she grins. "Last year it snowed so much that we couldn't go far. I want to show you something."

"Sure," he agrees, readily of course.

"Alexis," she calls back down the hall. His daughter pops out of the guest room, dragging her coat on as she comes.

"I'm coming."

He glances back to Kate with a pleased grin, sees her knowing look in his direction. He pulls on his own coat, buttons it up, but he forgoes gloves when he sees her do the same. Palm to palm and maybe he'll put her hand in his coat pocket to keep her thin fingers warm.

And there's Alexis. He turns and she's pushing past him towards the door. "Kate, your dad's making us Christmas dinner?"

"Yeah," Kate answers. "He likes to cook. Never did before. Partly out of self-defense, I guess, and partly because she did."

Alexis glances at him quickly, but he's not going to stop Alexis from asking questions if Kate's willing to share.

"Your mom cooked a lot?" Alexis asks. "I remember you said once that she made brunch. And the cookies are her recipe."

The surprise flickers across Kate's face so quickly that Castle is sure his daughter didn't see it. But Beckett is already herding them out the back door and across the porch, down the steps to the cold landscape below.

"My mom cooked a lot," Kate confirms, but she leaves it at that and that's okay too.

He's content to take in the sight before him, the carefully kept line of her father's property meeting the wild and crowded press of the forest beyond. Fir trees and spruce, sharply defined pine, and the feathery looking hemlock. The rest he can't identify, probably variations on a theme, and the ground beneath his feet as they start walking is spongy with fallen needles and yesterday's rain.

Her hand finds his, and then Alexis is doing the same on his other side, huddling close to him as the wind blasts across the back of the house. Kate doesn't huddle, of course, just shivers and marches forward into the close covering of trees, their fingers tangled.

It's not as cold here, despite the lack of light penetrating the growth, but the wind is gone and Alexis eases from his side, releases his hand as well. Kate doesn't, and he slides hers into his pocket, tucking her closer with that movement as well.

She gives him a look, neither recrimination nor relief, just perhaps studying him, and she leaves her hand where it is.

He remembers suddenly that the poem is still in his pocket, that no doubt she can feel it, she remembers it, but she says nothing, just like she said nothing a few days ago as well.

They walk quietly, but not in silence: the crunch of needles under their boots, the call of birds migrating, the trickle of raindrops somewhere making their slow way down to the earth, the far off rush of water in a stream they can't see. The evergreens are still verdant and broad in the gaps between naked limbs, the sky above giving out a grey and diffuse light.

Alexis wanders a little bit ahead, her fingers skimming over fanlike branches, underbrush, the rough bark of a tree trunk. Castle can clearly see the path, not just worn by so many feet, but also kept up by continuous maintenance. He wonders if her father comes out here and does it himself, pruning back the more intrusive bushes, clearing out rocks, keeping it neat.

"I think park service keeps the pathways up," Kate murmurs.

"You read my mind," he laughs softly, glancing over at her.

She shrugs, little smirk playing on her lips. "Not hard to do, Castle."

Uh-huh. Maybe so. It does all play on his face when he's around her. Can't help it; he wants to share. With her. He wants her to know.

She bumps her shoulder into his and squeezes his fingers in his pocket. "Hurry up a little. Your daughter's going to beat us there."

* * *

Kate's been listening for it, the sound of rushing and tumbling water, but she can tell that Castle wasn't paying attention. So when they come upon the low-lying falls and the stream that curves out and away from them, she feels his arrested movement, the stillness of his body at the sight.

Alexis is off a little to their right, crouched down near the water, her fingers running over a piece of schist rock that the river has made shine. Granite and sandstone and quartz pebbles, those chunks her father calls beach rocks that look like concretions made of shell.

All smoothed by river water. Here it tumbles over an outcropping and churns in a small pool before meandering out again, spinning and lazy, before feeding into the lake where her father fishes.

She can feel the poem in Castle's coat pocket and she draws it out again, flips it open with her thumb to look at the words. Not to read, just to soak up the impression of them.

Castle takes in a breath beside her. "Oh, Kate. Look."

She lifts her head from the lines and follows his gaze to the far side of the pool.

A pair of snow geese are nosing their pink and black bills into the shallow water, one at a time, a slender white neck raised in watchful silence as its mate searches below. The two are different, one the white of its name, the other a grey-blue, but she's seen this before; her father calls them snows and blues and they often choose a mate the same coloring as their mismatched parents.

The two work in tandem, moving slowly through the marshy edge of the pool, until the white one takes a few steps and spreads his wings wide, the black tips brilliant against the water. He strokes against the air and lifts away.

Kate catches her breath as the mate stays grounded, her grey-blue body ruffling in the wind, her white neck lifted to watch the other's ascent, longing in every curve and flare of feather.

They all stand helpless as the blue snow goose delays, the grey wings unfurling, stretching, making ready.

Castle's fingers flex around hers as the other finally takes flight, meeting its mate in the sky.

"There she goes," he murmurs, his voice pitched low and running like water. "Just took her some time."

* * *

He finds a red star-leaf made bright by rainwater and carries it back with him, the fragile skin drying in the cold air. Kate still has the poem in her other hand, pushed into her own pocket now, and he doesn't ask.

She left his present on the bedside table with his coffee again this morning, a black and grey piece of quartz with shimmers of cobalt, small as his thumb. He's got it in his pocket too, so he takes it out and hands it over to her.

Alexis comes back to him with another red leaf, a baby to his daddy one, and twirls it between her fingers with a grin. He gives her his leaf and she bounces up on her toes to kiss his cheek, running on ahead again with both now.

Kate is watching him like she does and doesn't understand.

"So the stone?" he murmurs.

"It's pretty," she says.

He laughs and watches her smooth her thumb over the rock. She switches hands with the poem, folded again, and puts it back in his pocket, giving it up.

"That's not it, Kate. There has to be a story to that blue stone."

"I found it here, at the pool with the little falls."

"When?"

"When I was here," she says.

"Well, that's helpful," he says drily, and she laughs a little, pink in her cheeks and her eyes smiling.

"Yes, true. I guess I think of it in capital letters, and I forget that could sound like any time ever. But-"

"After you were shot," he murmurs, because now he sees it written into the sky overhead, bold and fierce. What she wanted to show him. "Do you think about that now every time you come to your dad's?"

She gives a little jump over a tree root grown into the path and he can't help the reflective smile that flashes across his face. She turns back to him, tugging on his coat pocket to get him moving, the piece of quartz in her other hand.

"I do and I don't," she answers. "Less and less, maybe. It's peaceful out here and I needed that - the isolation and separation. And now I think I can talk about it with you and not-"

She pauses, glancing at the stone then back up to him.

"Not?"

"Ah, not hurt your feelings."

"My feelings aren't hurt. Any more."

She nods, tucks the hair back behind her ears in that way she has, a moment out of the moment, time away from time. A means of getting a breath before diving in.

"I saw that stone out in the stream and I wanted it," she starts suddenly, still walking the path to the cabin with him, but also back there at the falls. "I wanted to have it."

Castle can picture her like Alexis was, hunched near the water and yearning for it. Today is too cold to wade in, that summer Kate was too broken, still healing, needing to be healed.

"I went in for it," she says finally.

He figured as much. "How'd that work out for you?"

She laughs again and sighs a petulant huff of air. "Yeah, about like that. The water was cold - it's spring fed - and I had no balance at all. I went to my knees so many times that I lost count. Those rocks are slippery. I was soaking wet."

He no longer wishes he could've been there for that, for her. He's not sure when that happened, or how he moved past it, but it's gone. Water under the bridge. She did what she did for herself, for him, for that hope of what they could be if she just kept working towards it. Not how he would've done it, but it's how it was done.

"But you got the rock."

"I did. Took ages. But I needed it as a reminder." And then she takes his hand and unfurls her fingers to drop the granite into his palm, the contact somehow intimate and suggestive. He wants to kiss her, but instead he'll settle for the last of her story.

"And now you don't need it?"

"Now I want you to have it." She shrugs at that, but he hears that the answer isn't exactly a _no_. She might still want the reminder, but Castle is the one who will hold on to it for her.

"I get to keep your reminders," he smiles. He will build her an altar of her little stones, if that's what she needs.

"Castle, you're what I was reminding myself about," she laughs, shaking her head at him like he doesn't get it.

Oh. Oh, she was working towards _him._ He is the rock in the middle of the stream. Wow.

"I love getting to know all your private stuff," he murmurs, studying the piece of granite in his fingers with new eyes. The stick man in her desk drawer, the paper snowflakes still hanging in his loft, and now this little black and blue-sparkling rock resting in his hand.

"Sometimes, I like telling you," she says back, a grin lifting the corners of her mouth.

"Only sometimes."

"Well." She shifts toward him on the path and presses her open mouth to his cheek, breathing hot against his cold skin. "You'll get them all out of me eventually, Castle."


	18. Dec 17 - On my way back home

_December 17 - On my way back home_

* * *

Kate takes the small, nearly weightless box from her father, amused by the awkward wrapping. That was always her mother's job, while her father was the one who decorated - the lights, the tree, the stockings, everything. He's learning though - there's a blue cloth bow on this one, the paper a beautiful snow scene.

Alexis left for the city a few hours ago, and it wasn't that they were waiting to do Christmas presents until after she was gone. It just happened that way.

Well, maybe they were.

"It's for you both," her father says, moving back to sit in his chair.

Kate glances up in surprise, feels Castle's sudden eagerness at her side.

"Ooh, for both of us?"

Castle had actually picked out her father's Christmas gift - a Keurig coffee maker with the reusable filter. His idea and everything. She wrapped it, taking on her mother's job, and for some reason, handing over the gift to her father, it seemed natural that it was from the both of them.

But receiving a gift from her father intended also for Castle. . .

She pulls the bow slowly, feels Castle's eyes on her movements, his unspoken demand for her to _hurry up, Beckett_. She starts to slide her nail under the tape, but then presses her lips together and passes it over to him.

"Go for it. But I open the box," she says, hears her father chuckle.

Castle shreds the paper expertly, revealing the white jewelry box in a matter of moments. He grins triumphantly and gives it back to her.

Kate pushes open the top and sees two tickets.

"Dad?"

"It's a play in the city called 'Sleep No More'-"

"Are you _serious_?" Castle gasps, snatching the tickets from the box and studying them.

"I thought it sounded like your kind of thing, Rick." Jim is smiling broadly - one of the widest smiles Kate has seen on his face in years. A fist squeezes in her chest and she leans into Castle's side to look at the tickets over his shoulder.

"What is this?" she asks, since both men seem to know everything about it already.

"It's based off of Macbeth, right, Jim?"

"That's what I hear. There's no theatre though - it's all staged in a hotel."

"I heard they built a warehouse into a supposed abandoned hotel and the audience gets to walk around among the actors. Kate, it sounds so awesome. Interactive theatre."

"You follow around whatever character you like," her father continues, his voice sounding nearly as excited as Castle's. "And you see whatever scene they play in; you can switch characters in the middle and follow someone else. You can pick up stuff around the hotel - like a datebook or a letter they've just written."

"And," Castle adds, eagerness all over his face. "The best part? All the audience members are masked."

Kate laughs and glances up to her father. "You're right. Perfect for him."

"I thought you guys. . .it seemed like you would enjoy it. Mystery and the theatre and all of that." Jim is shrugging it off, pretending like it's no big deal, but it's huge. It's her father pulling Castle into this, and it's also - just a little bit - celebrating Christmas again. As family.

"Thanks, Dad," she says softly, smiling at him.

"This is awesome, Jim. Thank you. It's for February?"

"I think the 23rd, yes. And thanks for this new coffee maker. I've been wanting to try it. The pot usually ends up sitting out all day and the coffee's bad. This will be great."

The three of them sit in quiet in the living room for a few more moments, and then Kate shakes herself out of it, lifts to her feet to go to her father. Her dad glances up and she leans down to kiss his cheek, hugging him around the shoulders as he returns the embrace.

"I guess this is Christmas, huh, Katie?"

"Something like it, Dad."

His fingers tighten at her shoulder blades in the instant before he lets her go, and then Kate glances back to Castle, her eyebrow raised in question. He nods and stands as well, carefully putting the tickets back in their box, clutching it against his chest.

She turns and squeezes her dad's shoulder. "We should go, Dad."

"Surprised you took Monday off at all, Katie."

"Me too," she laughs, smirking a little at him as he stands. "Might've been Rick's idea."

"Ah, makes sense. All right, my girl. Need help getting everything out to the car?"

"Rick already packed everything when he was helping Alexis," she answers, shaking her head. They'd decided to stay on a few hours, get lunch on the drive back so they can have the afternoon and evening to get things done at home. She knows Castle wants to write - he was scribbling on the back of an old, unsent Christmas card he found in her father's desk drawer - and she needs to do laundry and make some phone calls.

"Kate."

She nods and leans in once more to kiss her father good-bye, glad they came earlier this year, grateful for the easy way her father's accepted it. After that near-disastrous dinner date with Martha and then the strange way the parents clicked, she's been hesitant to mix their families. She owes Martha some family time now as well.

"Thanks for this, Katie. Good weekend. I'll probably be out with the guys on Christmas Day."

"I won't call you," she assures him. "But maybe the night before? Castle has a thing about Christmas Eve, but I should have time."

"Okay, sweetheart. Safe drive."

She collects her shoulder bag and coat, sees Castle already out by the car; he's evidently started the engine to get it warmed up, and he comes back into the cabin with a burst of cold air.

He reaches out and shakes her father's hand. "Jim, always fun. Thanks for having us again this year."

"Glad you were here, son. Let's make it a thing."

"Definitely," he nods, a smile stretching across his face. "And those tickets. I'm looking forward to that. A lot. Thank you."

Her father dismisses his thanks with a wave of his hand, but he's smiling too, an easy one, and Kate's suddenly grateful that Castle and Alexis were here this weekend, intruding on her family time, interjecting their own brand of humor and amusement and fun. The last ten years or so, it's just been the two of them haunting the season, pretending the holiday doesn't exist or attempting to recreate it but failing.

This has been different, and sometimes awkward, but so much better for both of them.

"Okay, Katie," her father says with a soft chuckle. "Be on your way."

She puts her hand to Castle's back, pushing him out ahead of her, and she only looks back at her father once, his lone figure standing in the doorway, waving, cradling his new coffeemaker.

* * *

"That went well," she says, caution in her voice.

Castle glances over at her, the stiff set of her body as she drives. His car, but he headed for the passenger side and she didn't even seem to notice.

"I think it went great," he adds, lifting his arm to sling it over the back of her seat. Her shoulders automatically hunch, but the moment he trails his fingers to her neck, she relaxes.

She gives him a quick look as she makes the turn towards the interstate. "Yeah? The gift-giving thing. . .honestly, I didn't see that coming, Castle."

"I'm honored," he says quietly. Her father thought of _him_ when he got his daughter a gift.

She sucks in a breath and he doesn't look at her, leaves his hand at the back of her seat but not touching, not crowding her space.

"My dad likes you," she says, as if she's not sure he knows.

"Yeah, I like him too. He's funnier than I expected."

Kate laughs softly at that, hooks her left hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and then reaches back to snag him by the wrist. He takes his arm down, but lets her hang on to him, their hands loosely joined over the cupholders, her thumb stroking his wrist.

"I think Alexis likes him too," he adds carefully. She only nods and hums at that, and he's not sure if she truly doesn't see the import of it, or if she's just pleased it's gone so well.

"Next year-"

"Yeah," he interrupts. He doesn't want her worrying about next year. Let it come in its own time, with its own problems.

"Well. I just - my Dad asked me this year, Castle. Should he get Alexis something-"

"Oh no," he hurries. "No, that's not necessary-"

"Well, isn't that the point?" she asks, her bottom lip worried between her teeth. "None of it is necessary, but it's Christmas. And my Dad - there's no one else to - so I don't know. I told him not to do anything, but maybe I should've-"

"Next year is fine, Kate." If she keeps talking, his throat will close up and the tears will knot up in his chest and he will cry. He will. She's got to stop _trying_ so much and go back to being a little distant and reserved, because he can totally handle that. He's used to that. This Kate Beckett who knits his daughter into her family is going to completely unmake him.

"Okay," she says finally. "And anyway, next year it will be more clear that-"

She stops suddenly and his curiosity wakens, his eyebrows raising at the pink flush up her cheeks. Next year it will be more clear that-? What?

Huh. Well, look at that. Detective Beckett has a timetable for them in her head. Wonder if he can tease that out of her later.

He grins to himself and she snorts, evidently seeing it, but they don't say anything more. No need. It's all there between them in the car, the hesitant way the weekend coalesced, the awkwardness, and then all of the relief of actually having fun together, being easy, being family.

* * *

She checks her phone as she stands on the sidewalk, sighs to herself as she lifts her head back up to Castle. He looks handsome in the golden light. Edible. Too bad.

"Work?" he murmurs, pulling her bag out of the car and dropping it at her feet.

"Work," she affirms. She slides her phone into her pocket and comes up on her toes to hook her arms around his neck. He grins and goes in for a kiss, a peck of his lips that's entirely unsatisfying. "You can do better than that, Castle."

"So demanding these days."

"I've always been demanding. Were you not paying attention?"

They both grin and he comes back for a deeper kiss, settling his lips over hers before slowly pressing his tongue inside, excruciating and unrepentant, bending her back over his arm as her body tightens in anticipation.

He finishes with a flourish, a nip of her bottom lip and his hand squeezing her ass, hauling her back upright and against his chest, and jeez, now she's breathless and turned on.

"You tell me, Kate. Have I been paying attention?"

She lets out a rough chuckle and presses her hot cheek to his, their smiles touching at the corners, his hands rubbing slowly up and down the back of her arms.

"I'll take that as a yes," he whispers and kisses the skin right before ear, his breath warm and arousing so that her body curls into him at the touch. He knows every spot, doesn't he? Every button to push, too.

"I gotta go," she says finally, closes her eyes at the way her voice sounds.

"Yeah, you do." He releases her, leans down to pick up her bag and draw it up her arm and on her shoulder, his fingers hooked in the strap and tugging a little. "Plus, I want to go check out my advent calendar."

She smiles slowly, lashes catching as she watches the excitement steal over his face. "See you later, Castle."

His hands drop from her, a thumb glancing off her wrist bone, fingers tangling in hers a moment, and then he turns back around for his car. She watches him get in and start the engine, her lips still warm and tingling, and then she heads down the block for her apartment building.

* * *

When he dumps his stuff in his room, he realizes Kate was in here. She must've done this when she grabbed the last few days' worth of gifts, right before they left.

He chuckles to himself and heads for the calendar he left on his dresser, slowly cradles the ornament she's left for him. It dangles down from Day 17's window; she's hooked it over the top of the casement and he releases is slowly.

A baby's first Christmas ornament, much like the one he got her. Pale blue, the same tacky graphic of a cherubic baby fallen asleep under a Christmas tree with the year written in flourished cursive. He spins it around and laughs.

_I Survived a Beckett Christmas._

* * *

Kate's right in the middle of the 12th's bullpen, juggling her coffee and her coat as she heads for her desk when her phone vibrates with an alert.

She nods to Esposito and glances at the filled murder board with a held-back groan. She hates it when she gets here in the middle of something. Looks big too. Complicated. Ryan's already heading for her with a file folder and a stack of printouts, and then Esposito is hanging up the phone and coming her way as well.

So it starts.

She dumps her stuff so she can get to her phone, scrapes her hair back from her face as she checks her messages.

It's Castle.

_you're cute. it's hanging proudly on my tree, front and center, already part of the family. want me to bring you dinner later?_

She lets her hair fall back to her shoulders, hums as she texts him back.

_you really are inspired. just make sure it's enough for the family here._


	19. Dec 18 - If it's too much to ask

_December 18 - If it's too much to ask_

* * *

Kate stands over the crime scene and pushes her hands deeper into her coat pockets, her eyes fixed on the body. The wind crawls icy cold fingers down her neck, makes her ears ache. The grey sky encloses the day like a bell jar.

A nudge at her back makes her turn.

He has coffee and she takes it, but the smile doesn't reach her lips.

"Why this one?" he murmurs, entirely too perceptive.

Esposito and Ryan come towards her and she doesn't answer him, instead gives out instructions. "Canvas the buildings connected to the alley here. Traffic cams. The usual. We'll check his home address."

The boys hurry off and Kate watches as Castle surveys the scene, stepping closer to the dead man sprawled on his stomach. In Castle's hand is his own coffee cup, and she sees his fingers clench on it when he realizes.

Just past the dead man's outflung arm lies a cardboard carryout tray, two coffees spilled to the pavement.

"Oh," Castle breathes out.

* * *

Castle gets rid of the coffee cups the second she's finished, even though he's not, and dumps them in the trash can. She turns her head towards him when he comes back to the murder board and her eyes look tired. One day back at work and this.

Seven days until Christmas but first they have to go through this.

He settles against her desk and watches her shift to one hip, her arms crossed and her fingers tapping her lips as she studies the details.

Robert Haskins. 44. Single father. The daughter is with Child Protective Services. No idea yet on who the second coffee was for.

Yeah, this case is going to suck.

* * *

Castle leaves her there at five to meet with Paula, then goes back to the jewelry store where he took Kate. He picks up her Christmas gift and takes it back to the loft, wraps it himself, and puts it under his tree.

He checks his phone but she hasn't messaged him; she didn't say it when he left, but he knows she'll be working late on this one.

Dinner is leftovers from last week, and eaten by rote, and then he cleans the kitchen, unloads the dishwasher, loads his plate and the tupperware container, his glass. He turns off the light and rolls his shoulders as he heads for his bedroom.

He changes out of his jeans into sweatpants, unbuttons his dress shirt slowly, remembering the man in the alley and his mysterious two cups of coffee. Castle pulls on a long-sleeved shirt, shoves the sleeves up to his elbows and stands in the middle of his room for a moment.

His mother is with old theatre friends who winter in Florida; she'll be back this weekend. Alexis is technically out of school for the semester, but she hasn't spent much time at home; he's heard that Max will be in Europe for Christmas, so she's been over at his place.

His empty loft feels all the more empty because of the memories that haunt each room, the people who used to be here but aren't. Alexis would curl up in the couch in his study and read while he wrote, or when she was even younger, color on the floor in her sketch pad. He remembers a few books he wrote where every chapter could be matched to a picture on his fridge.

He doesn't necessarily want those days back; he enjoys his life and what his daughter is accomplishing now. But the quiet nights here without his family close at hand are reminders. That time is gone. What is strange to him is when there's not the new to replace it, the next thing. When he's still - in transition.

Castle moves to his laptop and opens it, calls up his novel. The last time he worked on it for any stretch, it turned out he needed a better alibi. His fingers hover over the keyboard, the rows of black letters preceding, the white space ready for more, but the words don't form.

He's alone, and the words aren't there.

He settles back in his chair and lets his eyes drift to the window; it's begun to rain again, the sheeting water making an insistent tapping against the building.

Much like a keyboard.

He goes back to the document that will be his next Nikki Heat novel and he remembers the nothing on Kate's face this morning as she stood over the body.

And that is what he writes until the scene happens around it, until the words appear in the mist one by one, and then whole phrases, and then the sentences attach themselves into paragraphs and he is caught.

He has no alibi, but he's writing anyway.

* * *

Castle is tugged irrefutably up when he realizes he's not alone.

His eyes lift from the computer screen and he sees her curled on his couch in the study, her eyes drooping, a hand under her cheek as she waits him out. He vaguely remembers hearing the lock turn and the door open, remembers it like it happened just a moment ago, but she's been here longer than that he can tell.

"Hey," he says, startled but not.

"Hey." She slides her feet to the floor and stands, comes for him with a hand outstretched to palm his cheek. She kisses him softly on the mouth, brushes her thumb over his lips. "I'm tired, but I don't want to go to bed alone."

"I'm through," he promises. "I'll be right there."

She nods and disappears through the door to his bedroom, shedding her clothes as she goes. He looks over his work, stares at the screen a moment, then types out the last of the scene, a few lines more, then remembers where he meant to go with it and so has to make himself notes at the bottom. He saves that, hand at the top of the screen and ready to close up the laptop, but he hesitates.

One more.

He types quickly, fingers flying, that surge of _knowing_ that pushes the scene straight out of his head full form and whole on the page. Always happens to him around her; a look, the soft inflection of his name, the way her body moves, all the elements of Nikki Heat are found in her and when she comes to him, he-

He stumbles to a stop, fingers paused.

She didn't want go to bed alone, you idiot.

Castle jerks to his feet, saves the document even as he's closing the laptop. He drops it back to his desk and hurries into his bedroom. Her body is shrouded in darkness; she's turned off all the lights. He crawls into bed behind her, and his movements jostle her awake.

"Hey," she murmurs, turning over a little to watch him get settled.

"Didn't mean to leave you hanging," he offers, drawing the covers up.

"You didn't. Just the promise was enough. I fell asleep." She's not smiling, but there's no accusation in her tone either. He slides his fingers across to her hip and tugs. She doesn't move into him, merely draws his arm over her body and makes him come to her.

He curls at her back, brushing her hair out of his face as she shares her pillow with him. His arm is loose at her waist, their bodies just touching. She lets out a little sigh and he feels her sinking down into sleep.

He can't help pressing a kiss to that spot behind her ear, murmuring to her in the darkness. "Thanks for my gift today."

She hums but she's mostly gone.


	20. Dec 19 - Winter is coming

_December 19 - Winter is coming_

* * *

"What?" he says a little defensively as he comes out of his closet.

Her lips quirk upwards and she shakes her head in silence. He waits but she only draws her fingers through his tie and tugs him towards her. Castle goes willingly, pressing a kiss against her mouth and then again, again, until he hears that hum of pleasure and feels the smile.

"Figured we could use a better day," he murmurs. She smooths his tie down - yesterday's gift in his advent calendar - and her finger taps against one of the words scrawled over the white background.

"You know it's your novel?" she says softly, lifting an eyebrow at him. "All over your tie. I had it made."

He nods, his own mouth flirting with a smile, that same tightness in his chest when he pulled it out yesterday and realized.

"This your favorite passage?" he smirks, trying to lighten the mood. If he didn't, he might wrap his arms around her and never let go. Or at least make them considerably late for her job.

"I don't know about favorite."

From the third book, the passage from the Victoria St. Clair novel that Nikki reads to Rook. "Kinda meta, isn't it?" he asks, lifting a hand to capture her hip, his thumb traveling up the smooth rise of skin.

"A dashing rogue offers to ride along?" she gives back. "Seemed appropriate."

Mm, that's what she's getting at? He kisses her again for that, a soft draw of her lips and then a measuring touch of his tongue to hers. When he pulls back, he sees that satisfied tilt to her open mouth, a shiver of pleasure that makes her eyes look sleepy. And sexy as hell.

"Go-" she says, shaking her head and pushing him back with two fingers. "Don't start that this morning. Work is going to be busy."

He leaves her in the bedroom to finish getting dressed, heading for his kitchen and coffee.

"And open advent," she calls out.

Oh, yes, Advent. Already, he can tell this will be a better day.

* * *

Kate watches him in the car as they're stopped at a red light, his fingers tapping against his knee.

"Should've switched the days, huh?"

He glances over at her in surprise, a flickering smile that interrupts the grey day. "Could've used a shot glass last night, yeah. Did you-?"

She shakes her head. "I came straight to your place. Crawled into bed."

"Yesterday was a drinking day, that's for sure," he murmurs.

She nods and presses her foot to the gas slowly, waiting on the pedestrians to cross before she can turn. Today's gift - the House of Stark shot glass from Game of Thrones - got a dry chuckle from him and a sweep of his mouth down her neck, like he was tasting her for salt. Then he had to christen it with a quick whiskey before they left.

"You know, I'd like a direwolf," he muses into the quiet of her car. "Wouldn't that be cool?"

"Or something." Besides the fact that they only exist in the Game of Thrones universe.

"Hey, it would be great," he defends.

"In New York?"

"My place, no problem. It's big enough."

She grins to herself and has to press her lips together to hide it. Uh-huh. His place.

"What happened to co-parenting?" she says. "Joint custody."

He grunts and she can feel his eyes on her, practically see his surprise. He recovers quickly enough.

"Right, right. Equal time at both our places. Sure. Um. Your apartment is. . ."

"A little cramped for a direwolf," she smirks.

"But cozy, right? All of us with the cute, fluffy direwolf."

"Hair all over the place," she adds. "And what do you name a city-bound direwolf, huh?"

"Uh. . ."

"Why don't you think on that and get back to me before you go fantasizing about your direwolf-buddy."

* * *

Esposito flicks at Castle's tie with a raised eyebrow. "You got something on your tie, bro."

He presses it against his chest and narrows his eyes at Espo. "I like it. Kate gave it to me."

"Kate?"

"Beckett," he quickly corrects, swallowing hard.

Esposito works his jaw as he moves around Castle for the coffee. "Uh-huh."

He glances around but Kate's at her desk; he's in the clear. He finishes up her coffee and heads out for the bullpen, meets Kate right when she stands to write on the board. He snags her by the hand, takes the marker away to wrap her fingers around the mug.

"Thanks," she murmurs, taking a sip even as she frowns. "Can you put this on the board?"

She hands him the report and he scans it quickly, then pops the top off the black marker and adds in the details.

"Boys giving you a hard time about the tie?" she says.

He turns and she's smirking at him. "Not at all," he lies. "Not one bit."

"Sure, Castle."

* * *

"I think we've found the woman he was getting coffee for," Ryan says, hustling into the bullpen with a photo. "Camera down on Lex the night before."

Kate stands and takes it from him, studying the woman in the picture. Nice dress, laughing, her hand on their victim's chest, his arm around her waist. She looks young, happy.

She sees Ryan shooting Castle a strange look, then Castle reaches up and smooths his tie. She hides her smile behind the photo then hands it over to let him look as well. He sighs at the photo.

"Dos Coffees Man," he trails off, sounding. . .sad. His hand is still fiddling with his tie.

"Castle," Ryan says suddenly. "You - uh - getting choked up?"

She has to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing, moves instead to grab her coat. "Let's go find our second coffee woman."

* * *

Castle is scratching at his neck, fingers loosening his tie as she floors the gas, just makes the light.

"You okay there?"

He immediately drops his hand.

"Here we are," she murmurs as she pulls in behind Espo and Ryan.

* * *

Rebecca Miller is only a few years older than Kate, and her apartment is tastefully decorated if a little bland. She invites them inside and gestures to the couch, her hands nervous. She has to know it's bad news.

Castle takes a seat next to Beckett.

"Oh, nice tie," the woman says, her eyes a little blank.

Castle glances down at himself in surprise, sees Kate's repressed smirk out of the corner of his eye before she's back to business.

"Ms. Miller," Beckett starts, bringing up the photo of their victim. "Do you know this man?"

"Oh, no. Oh, no, what's happened to him?"

* * *

"A secret affair," he murmurs.

Kate glances up from the murder board where she's adding in Rebecca Miller's information. The date the night before, the drinks at a local pub, the long walk to her apartment.

"He stayed the night," she says. "And went for coffee the next morning."

"Simple," he remarks. "And tragic."

She shrugs, marking the date on the man's timeline, but she understands.

"I can't believe she thought he just abandoned her," Castle mutters.

"He didn't leave a note," Kate defends. "He walked out the next morning while she was asleep and never came back. What was she supposed to think?"

"She should've known how much he loved her, that he'd never-"

"Castle," she says quietly, lifting her eyebrow at him.

He closes his mouth, pouting.

She waits and he shrugs his shoulders, his fingers stroking at his tie. "Maybe I'm projecting."

Kate glances around the bullpen and straightens up, places the marker on her desk as she comes to him. He lifts his eyes to her and she takes the tie out of his hands, reaches for the knot to loosen it slowly, tucking her fingers into his collar.

"You have no need to project, Rick Castle."

He takes in a grumpy breath, his forehead wrinkled. "I know."

"You don't have to wear it," she says with a soft smile, tugging on the knot of his tie.

"I like it," he protests.

"But you do look kinda. . .strangled."

He winces and reaches up, his fingers over hers as she loosens the knot a little more and slides one end out. "Yeah. Little bit."

Kate pulls the tie away from his neck and leans in, brushes her lips his adam's apple. "Not looking to put a collar on you, Castle."

"But I'm already whipped. Might as well."

She laughs and folds the tie up, pushes it into his jacket pocket.

"True, but we don't need to broadcast it, do we?"

* * *

She gets home late, drops her stuff in the entry of her apartment, too tired to pick it up. She rubs at her cheek, scratches her nails over her scalp and loosens her hair as she steps out of her shoes.

Kate jumps a mile when Castle comes out of her bedroom; she presses a hand to her heart.

"Castle."

"Hey, you have dinner yet?" He meets her at the kitchen, his hands reaching for her coat and unbuttoning, sliding it off while she gets her heartbeat back under control.

"Um, no," she says, letting him take her coat.

Castle grins. "Good. I made us something."

"Oh. Thanks," she smiles.

"And."

She lifts an eyebrow at him as he hangs up her coat, and he comes back to her with his hands in his pockets.

"And?"

He pulls out the necktie patterned with his words all over it, printed like it's fresh from a typewriter, crooked lines so small that from this distance, it looks almost checkered. It's not that bad, really, but on him. . .

"Dessert," he says with relish, swinging the tie.

"What," she laughs. "That's dessert?"

"It is when one of gets tied up."

"One of us?"

"Or both."

She chuckles and tugs on the tie dangling between his fingers. "Hopefully, it'll look better around your wrists than your neck."

He grins and leans in close, his breath skirting her jaw. "I was thinking yours, Detective."

She curls her hand in his belt and nips at his ear. "Then can I have dessert first?"


	21. Dec 20 - Wind in hair

_December 20 - Wind in hair_

* * *

"You haven't said anything about your Christmas party," she murmurs, moving around him to get to her wardrobe. "I thought that was your Rodgers family tradition?"

She pulls out the ubiquitous white shirt, shrugs it on as his fingers trail over her hips, scale her ribs. Kate bats his hand away to button up her shirt and he finally lifts his eyes to meet hers. But he doesn't say anything.

"Castle?"

"I don't want a bunch of strangers in my place for Christmas," he says finally. He looks apologetic, but that might be the best present he's ever given her.

Relief. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to do the party with him - as _us_ or as _him_ with herhelp. "Okay. No strangers. But I feel like we need to do something with your mother - include her, you know?"

He shrugs at her, but he's at least nodding.

"Castle. I don't want to leave her out," she warns carefully. They had such a good weekend with her father, and maybe it was strategic, adding people slowly to their mix, but she doesn't want to ignore his mother just because the woman will be at the loft with them on Christmas Eve.

Kate needs to be purposeful.

Castle snags her hand. "Maybe just dinner? Invite everyone over here tomorrow for dinner together," he says, and his eyes slowly light up. "Yeah. That's perfect. Just our precinct family with Mother and Alexis. That way if it really is the end of the world, we'll all be together - so Ryan and Jenny and Esposito and Lanie and-"

"That sounds good," she hedges, ignoring the end of the world comment. "You might want to tell them about it first. See if they can make it, Castle."

"They can. I've been talking to the boys about a Christmas thing already."

She huffs softly and reaches for her cardigan, shrugging it on in deference to the cold she can already feel leaching in her windows.

Suddenly his hands are on her hips as he sits propped up against her dresser, tugging her into the vee of his legs. She balances with her fingertips at his thighs and leans in to his expectant kiss, a soft and warm good morning.

"Plan your Christmas dinner, Castle. I have to solve a murder."

"Please do."

* * *

Back at his place, Castle scrubs at his wet hair and shakes his head, glances in the mirror. He looks less tired and worn out than he felt most of this week, and he has a sinking suspicion it's because he slept in her bed.

Is he having dreams he doesn't remember? Kate hasn't said anything about him waking her up with them, but it's possible. He had dreams after they were locked in that freezer; he never recalled them in the morning, but he'd been ragged-looking. Like his sleep was continuously interrupted.

Could be. Maybe he'll worm his way into her bed again tonight.

He grins.

Time for Advent.

Castle pads barefoot into his closet to pick out a shirt, shrugs it on over his undershirt, tucking it into his jeans carefully. In his bedroom, he's still struggling with his belt when he flips open the window with his nail.

Whoa.

Wait.

Is that a real finger?

He hunches over his dresser to get a better look in the window and cautiously pokes at the thing inside.

Rubbery.

Whew.

Castle reaches in and pulls out a rubber thumb, a kind of skin, actually, so that the thumb fits over his natural one and-

Holy shit.

He laughs out loud as the top of the thumb flashes red, a light somewhere inside blinking, and then he remembers.

He calls Kate even as he's heading for his laptop, waking it up, running his finger impatiently over the track pad of the mouse, and then she answers.

"Hey there."

"You got me a blinking thumb."

"Um. Yes."

"Is this from Drake's magic shop?" he asks, a little breathless because maybe it isn't, and if not, that is _fine_, it's fine, really, but if it is-

"Yes."

"Oh, you're perfect." And maybe tonight that one thing with ice cubes?

She laughs over the phone, a soft and dry sound. "Okay, Castle. Hurry up with my coffee."

"You already had coffee."

"Doesn't mean I don't want it again."

"Yeah, you do," he mutters throatily, has to hang up.

* * *

He annoys the crap out of her all day with those damn magic tricks. He came into work an hour after her, having gone home to shower and change and look in his calendar, and so yes, it's her own fault, but-

"Castle," she says carefully, raising an eyebrow.

"This is the coolest thing ever," he says with relish, making the fake thumb light up. He hits one fist against the other one and the light disappears. Then he opens his fist and the red clown nose rolls off his palm and drops to the floor.

She has to admit, his sleight of hand and misdirection are quite well done. It actually fools her eyes into believing he's squeezed the red nose in his fist so tightly that it lights up his thumb.

A little bit.

She can suspend reality long enough to let the magic do its trick on her. Especially for him.

"Castle," Ryan says hurriedly, coming back into the bullpen with something in his hands. Kate studies his face, the tension in his shoulders, and wonders why Ryan is sharing evidence with Castle first. "Hey man, you gotta explain this to me again. I don't get it."

Explain-

"The coin funnel, Ryan. Come on. Easiest trick ever."

Oh no.

He brought magic tricks _from home_. Not just the light up thumb?

"Castle," she says evenly, narrowing her eyes. "Did you bring. . .more than the thumb with you?"

He jerks his head back to look at her, then slowly turns to Ryan. "Walk away. That's her scary face."

And then they both break for the conference room.

Kate stands up from her desk slowly and watches them enter, sees past them to Esposito who is shuffling cards.

Oh no. Not-uh. They have a _case._

* * *

He gets sent home. How embarrassing.

Sent home not by Captain Gates, who is snickering from her office, he is sure, but by his-

Girlfriend?

Ug. What a terrible word. His girlfriend. She's not - she's more than - it's not that he doesn't want her to be-

She snags him by the pocket of his coat before he can get all the way inside the elevator and she leans in to press a quick kiss to his mouth.

"Behave. I'll be home in a couple hours."

"Still working on Dos Coffee?"

"We've got the ex-boyfriend coming in for questioning, and I can't have you pulling doves out of your sleeves."

"I'm honored you think me so proficient. But I've never mastered live animals. Unless you want to include yourself-"

She shoves him into the elevator.

"Wait," he pushes his hand between the doors. "Yours or mine?"

"Yours."

* * *

His mother interrupts the magic by coming home a day early. But Kate slaps his hands away - only to retaliate with her own hand coming over his - oh my, Kate Beckett, that is _so not cool_.

Then she brushes her fingers over his shoulder as she stands to greet his mother, kissing cheeks and hugging and dragging Martha's suitcase inside the door.

"Mother," he says, warm as he can make it when she's ruined the mood yet again. "How was Florida?"

"Boring. A complete snooze. And I mean that literally. Everyone in Florida is so old," she complains, tugging her lime green gloves off her fingers.

Kate laughs softly, warmly, and takes his mother's coat, hands it back to Castle to deal with. He sighs and hangs it up in the closet, hears Martha getting settled on the couch with Kate, the two of them talking. He takes his time, zoning out of their conversation just so he can hear the rhythm of their words, get a sense for the familiarity and friendliness.

He's glad to hear that it sounds honest, not faked. Kate likes his mother, has always been more sympathetic than he has, really, but after that disastrous dinner, he's wondered.

"Oh, darling, Kate says you're having a dinner party this year," his mother calls out.

He shuts the coat closet and comes back to them on the couch with a smile. "A dinner party. I thought it would be nice to have a more intimate crowd."

"That sounds magnificent," she says. "And I have some splendid recipes for appetizers. Although you will have it catered, I suppose?"

Kate looks astonished, but he's already nodding. "Of course."

"Catered?" she asks, glancing between them. And then her face blanks and smooths out. "Okay. Right. Of course."

He grins because he knows that's knocked her down a little, but this is a Castle Christmas party.

He's not going to be serving it himself. That's ridiculous.

"Think you can find a caterer this late?" Kate asks carefully.

His mother is already rising from the couch for her purse. "I know just the woman. She's a saint in the kitchen and I'm sure she'll do it. Richard, you remember Clara?"

And already his mother is digging into a plan, spreading out her datebook on the kitchen bar and grabbing the house phone to call. Kate looks completely discombobulated on the couch, but he leans in and kisses her softly.

"This is what Christmas looks like with the Rodgers family," he says quietly, a laugh in his voice that he knows she can hear.

She grimaces but nods. "I did. . .ask for it," she says finally.

Yeah, she did.

Kate pushes on his shoulders and stands up, heads for his mother.

He loves her. She never gives up.


	22. Dec 21 - You are the one

_December 21 - You are the one I could never be done with_

* * *

She hates being this late.

Nothing for it though.

Castle answers his door before she can finish turning the key and his grin is infectious, light, happy.

"Hey, you're finally here. World hasn't ended yet, Beckett. Fingers crossed."

"I'm sorry," she sighs out, stepping into his loft with her hands full and pretty much ignoring his joke. He takes her bags from her nearly nerveless fingers and drops them in the hall. She lets out a frustrated breath but he's wrapping his arms around her for a hug.

"You feel tense."

"Charged the ex," she says quietly. "He didn't want to go quietly. Esposito has a black eye."

He laughs a little, mostly surprised she thinks, and hugs her a little harder. "But Javier's still coming to our Christmas dinner?"

_Our._

Her whole body eases up, warm and toasty, and she curls her palms at his shoulders and buries her nose in his neck for the smell of him.

"Your cheeks and nose are cold," he laughs a little, his fingers coming to the back of her neck and tangling in her hair. His voice is soft at her ear, a little bit apologetic. "People are already here."

She kisses the skin under her lips and forces herself to step back. When she does, she sees Alexis and the boy who must be Max - a man, really, a college kid, not as nervous as maybe he should be. And then Castle's mother, Lanie beside her, the two of them swapping stories, each one getting louder and louder.

Kate must have heard them, somewhere subconsciously, because she's not surprised they're already here.

"I have to get dressed," she says finally.

Castle picks up her bags and loads her back up with them, smiling softly. "I'll pour you a glass."

"Oh, yes."

* * *

When Kate Beckett comes walking into their dinner party in that dress-

Oh.

A deep green, the sense of velvet, a neckline that accents her shoulders and a skirt that clings to the tight curves of her silhouette.

She could kill him looking so gorgeous.

Her hair is half-pulled back, waves around her face, making her cheekbones prominent and her lashes so dark and elegant. She looks like she's a dark Grace Kelly in a Hitchcock movie, perfect, soft lighting and cultured lines, sophistication in every step she takes towards him.

While she was getting dressed, Esposito, Ryan, and Jenny showed up and the living room is full, the music soft, people laughing. Kate comes straight to him, a curl at her neck that his fingers lift automatically to touch.

"Hey," she says, and already her eyes are scanning the small group.

"You look beautiful," he murmurs, dipping his head so that she's the only one who hears him.

Her gaze snaps back to his, a smile rooting slowly and unfurling from her lips. "Thank you." He feels her hand skim his waist and then press against his chest, her fingers slowly smoothing his shirt. "I love this color."

He grins. "Not exactly Christmasy."

She shrugs. "Looks good on you."

He self-consciously smooths his hand down his purple tie, the deeper plum of his shirt against his velvet jacket. She tangles her fingers with his and leans into kiss him softly.

"Nice heels," he adds, liking this eye-to-eye thing.

She opens her mouth - to say what? he'll never know, because Alexis calls her name and comes in for a hug, breathing compliments and hello and _meet my friend, Max_ and Castle lets himself be pushed out of the spotlight because really. . .

Really.

Kate Beckett belongs there.

* * *

She finds Martha alone near the fireplace, the woman's hands looking suddenly gnarled and old against the stem of her wine glass. It takes some of the _hurry_ out of Kate's intent and she stands with Castle's mother in a moment of silence entirely unlike the actress.

"Well," Martha says first. "I think Max is a fine man. How about that collection of his?"

"Surprising," she says with a smile. "Kinda geeky to still have Pokemon. But cute. No worse than comic books."

"Cute. I think so too," Martha says with a little laugh, her eyes overly bright. "Well, Richard is a geek in his own way, so we would say that, wouldn't we?"

Kate smiles slowly. "We would," she confirms, pressing her teeth into her bottom lip.

Martha gives her a knowing salute with her wine glass and finishes it off.

Silence falls between them again, the kind that Kate's never really seen from his mother before, and she has a hard time breaking it herself. She doesn't know how to ask for what she wants, only how to demand.

"What did you want to talk to me about, dear?"

Kate isn't even surprised that his mother has already figured that out.

"Did Alexis tell you she saw it yesterday?" Kate says quietly, glancing past Martha towards the living room. Castle is holding court on the arm of the couch, Esposito standing next to him and illustrating whatever story the two of them are telling.

"She did. And I saw it today," his mother says.

Kate waits, but when the woman offers nothing more, Beckett bites her lip harder and jumps right into it. "Are you - do you think it's okay?"

"I think it's darling."

"Will he like it?"

Martha sighs and turns to her with a wide gesture of her hand, encompassing everything and nothing. "I think he loves you, Kate. And anything you want to give him - he will take."

Kate puffs out a breath and feels that old panic skittering around in her chest. She presses her hand to her sternum and turns her eyes back to Castle. "I could - I don't have to keep it. It can still be undone."

"Kate."

"I mean, if you think it wouldn't be right," she says finally. Her eyes go back to his mother. "It's important to me that you and Alexis both think-"

"Alexis loves it. I think it's charming and sweet and a beautiful gesture, darling. But in the end, I just want it to be good for you both."

And that's the thing. She can't promise that it will.

She can only hope.

* * *

Castle jerks at the touch of fingers on his waist, but he turns and grins at Kate when she slides in next to him at the couch. He squeezes an arm around her shoulders and takes the glass of wine she's offering, kisses her instead of sipping it.

She tastes sweet.

"Okay, okay," Ryan is saying loudly. "Pictionary or charades."

Most everyone boos and Alexis scrambles up from the chair where she'd been sitting squeezed in with Max. "I have an idea. How about taboo?"

"Which one is that?" Kate calls out next to him. They've all migrated to the living after dessert and a hundred different conversations are going on around them, but her voice cuts through it all.

"The one with the word you can't say, have to describe," Lanie answers. "Go get it, Little Castle. That's perfect. Javier, you better get your hand off my ass. I am not that drunk."

Alexis and Max both blush - where have _his_ hands been, Castle wonders - and Alexis goes running for the coat closet where his games are stacked on the shelf above.

"Is this the one with the annoying timer?" Jenny asks.

"Yeah, I think it buzzes at you too," Alexis calls back.

Castle shifts. "Can't we play Scattegories?"

"Boo, no. I veto. You're a writer; you'll kill us in that one."

"Actually, Dad is terrible at Scattegories. He makes up stupid answers that aren't real. He never gets any points."

"Trying to get creative there, Castle?"

"Just trying to have some _fun_ with it," he huffs at them. "Alexis, bring it over here."

Ryan snags the box away. "No way. Not-uh. I'm in control of this one."

"Hey now-"

"Here, we'll make two teams. Every other person."

"Can we number off?"

"Why? No need, Castle."

"But how am I supposed to know who's on my team?"

"Okay, everyone on Castle's team raise your hands."

Hands pop up. Not Kate. But Lanie, Jenny, and Max-

"Hey, we've got an uneven number."

"Oh, I'm not playing," Ryan says. "So Martha, you're on Kate's team."

"Why aren't you playing?"

"He's too competitive," Jenny says knowingly. "He gets not so nice when we play."

"He is so very competitive, bro. You should see him when it's just the two of us playing Halo."

"But you guys play Halo with me and he's fine-"

"You lose, Writer Boy. All the time. So he never gets upset."

"I do not _lose-_"

"Okay, okay," Kate interrupts, stepping between them. "Let's play."

* * *

He loses.

* * *

She's his consolation prize.

* * *

He wakes sharply in the middle of the night, stomach churning and sweat at his back, and he has to slide out of bed, careful not to disturb her.

He stumbles to the bathroom and leans down over the sink, shaking his head like a dog. It's dark and he can't look in the mirror.

Her fingers at his back make him jump and then she's hushing him with the press of her body into his and the murmur of her voice close to his ear, her arm winding around his waist and tugging.

"Come to bed."

He doesn't even know what woke him, what has his body twitching and his mind racing through darkness. But he lets her lead him back to bed and baby him, her hands pulling the blankets up over them, her knee sliding between his, her fingers curling around his neck. She's already falling asleep, and he's not - he won't for a while, but that's all right.

It's enough now to have broken it, whatever it was, and set him back straight.

He closes his eyes and listens to her breathe, and to the silence, and to the rest of the apartment moving and shivering just past his bedroom.

But the world didn't end.

His world's right here.


	23. Dec 22 - Stopping by your place of work

_Dec 22 - Stopping by your place of work and acting like I haven't dreamed of you and I and marriage in an orange grove_

* * *

She gets an early call - not for a body, but for processing on the ex-boyfriend - so she leaves him as the sun is just beginning to rise. When he's had a moment to wallow in the still-warm bed and the lingering scent of her shower, Castle finally rolls over and tugs open the advent window, reaches his finger inside to sweep out whatever it might be that's-

An orange?

A tiny orange, one of those cuties that fit in the palm of his hand. Yesterday's pocket puzzle gift - the two twisted nails knotted together - took him nearly all day to get the hang of. He managed to untangle them quickly enough, and then he couldn't get them back together. And then when he accidentally got them back together, he couldn't repeat the process of getting them apart. Perfect for him, of course, and he kept going back to it while he prepared his loft for the dinner party.

But an orange? He shrugs and sits up to look at it more closely, has to laugh.

She's put a face on it with a black permanent marker, a goofy smile, round eyes, eyelashes. That's what does it for him, the eyelashes.

He's in love with her.

* * *

"Guess what today is?" Esposito hollers across the bullpen.

Kate winces and glances up, sees Castle getting off the elevator. Espo continues on towards him, a fist bump and a smirk, and asks his question of Castle again.

"I don't know. What's today?" Castle says finally.

"It is _not_ the end of the world. Look at that."

"I didn't say it was. I just said the Mayan calendar-"

"Blah, blah, blah. Yo, Beckett, you wanna come rescue your boy over here?"

Kate shakes her head but Castle slips away from Esposito's _I told you so_, and he heads for her looking only faintly hunted.

"Good morning, Detective," he grins and places her coffee next to her keyboard. The lid has a smiley face on it. Goofy man.

Kate looks up and lets him see the smile, pushes a little more into it than she feels this morning, just because his answering grin and the blue of his eyes do wonders for her mood. He takes off his coat and settles in his chair, adjusting the edges of his jacket and squirming just enough to send a flash of awareness through her.

Suddenly he's pulled something out of his pocket with a flourish and deposited it next to her coffee.

It's the orange she placed in his advent calendar. He's added a little heart to the smiley face, and she blushes, lifts her eyes to him.

"You stopped by. . ." she starts, chewing her bottom lip. Even though, at the time, she felt like that song was safer on a Saturday because he usually didn't come by the 12th on the weekends. But here he is. "Stopped by my place of work?"

His face goes blank. He must sense that she's quoting something - the song actually - but he looks confused.

"Castle," she chides. "Aren't you listening to the songs?"

"Yes. I liked it - I do like it. Today's was good - felt like maybe it was more my song than yours though."

She shrugs and eyes the orange. "Well, the words are right there. If you're listening."

He tilts his head, questioning, but she waves it off. She doesn't want to get into it here, not with her own words when the song does such a better job of revealing everything.

"Okay," he says. "I'll listen to it again later, make notes. But I'm not eating that orange - in fact, I named her."

"Her?"

"Beckett, you gave the orange eyelashes."

She glances back to it in surprise. "Oh. I did."

"You did. So I named her. Kinda like Feggin - remember him?"

"Yes." Kate presses her lips together, eyes the orange and then him. "What did you name her?"

"Tropicana."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Of course you did."

"It's a good name."

"It's a brand of orange juice. That's like naming a chicken _Nugget_ or something."

"Oh, that's kinda cute."

"Morbid is what it is," she retorts.

He screws up his face and curls his hand around his orange, puts it back in his pocket.

"I'm just saying I expected better from a national bestselling author," she tosses off, shaking her head at him as she goes back to her work. Just a few more hours today and then they can get out of here.

* * *

He thought Tropicana was a funny name.

There was also Sunny D, but since that's barely made of orange juice at all, he vetoed it. Now he's thinking about it though and she's right - it's morbid for their little baby orange.

He uses his phone to do some word-association research, googling orange trees and fruit and peels and rind, but he gets nothing. Citrus. There's no famous literary event involving oranges. There's a French song, and there's the recipe for duck with orange sauce-

Duck. Hmm.

"Daisy," he says with relish.

Kate startles from the murder board and turns back to him. "Daisy? Who - is she the girlfriend?" It's an old case - from a few weeks ago - one they got stalled on when she got the call about Dos Coffees. She keeps going back to it when there's a slowdown on processing the ex.

"No. She's my orange," he says proudly, pulling it out of his pocket and tossing it to her.

Beckett catches it one-handed, _impressive_, and gives it a squeeze. "Daisy?"

He can see her brain working, backtracking through his own messy and convoluted connections as she tries to trace his logic. Finally she shrugs.

"I give up."

"Dasiy Duck, girlfriend of Donald."

"Duck," she says slowly, and then that eye-roll of a smile comes across her face and she laughs. The orange comes sailing back to him, an easy lob, and he catches it with both hands.

"Duck," he confirms.

"You're goofy."

"No, Beckett. Come on. Clearly I'm Mickey Mouse. I got the cool sidekicks, the hot girl friend in her polka dot dress-"

Instead of the eye-roll smile, he gets a thump to his ear and a quick scrape of her teeth against his cheek as she speaks.

"Better stop calling that polka dot dress I wore at the Hamptons my Minnie Mouse costume. You'll never see it again."

He shuts up.

* * *

Kate sends him home so that he can meet up with Alexis and Martha for lunch; she thought she'd make it, but it won't happen. He doesn't seem to mind, and maybe that's because she's promised him Christmas Eve.

She hopes she can keep it.

She will keep it.

The case on her white board is stagnant, but she does her duty - checks with forensics to remind them she's still waiting, cold calls the neighbors once more now that they're home for the weekend, resubmits her request for a subpoena for the phone records. She finishes off some paperwork and her phone rings.

"Hey there," she murmurs, cradling it against her ear with her shoulder, shuffling the case folder to the back.

"I listened to the song," he says.

_You and I and marriage in an orange grove._

Her heart fumbles and her mouth goes dry. She is suddenly so very grateful it's a phone call where she can close her eyes and remind herself not to panic, remind herself that _she started this._

"Kate."

She takes in a long breath and presses her palms flat to her desk. "Yeah."

But he's silent. Apparently her acknowledgment is enough, the sound of her breathing with him on the line, because they stay like that for a while, Kate hunched into her desk and Castle - Castle - she has no idea.

She has no idea.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kate."

And still.

She has no idea.

She gathers her courage and closes her eyes. "Call you tonight."

"Yeah," he says, soft and. . .encouraged?

She rubs her thumb in her temple. "Castle."

"We'll talk when you get off work, Kate. About nothing or. . ."

"Or where we can find an orange grove?"

He actually gasps, laughing, and she smiles herself, feels brave and foolish with this love squeezing her chest.

"Beckett. Maybe you should hold off on orange groves until _after_ Christmas Eve with my family."

"Not even your crazy Christmas can scare me away, Castle."

And even though she says it off the cuff and teasing, she realizes that she means it.

She means it.

Took her long enough.


	24. Dec 23 - One night of magic

_December 23 - One night of magic_

* * *

"Okay, duh," he mutters to himself, unrolling today's photo and pressing it smooth. He's put all of them - fourteen so far - on a piece of computer paper and taped them down. It's not like it's a hard puzzle, and the last photo said 'door' while this one says 'front' and he thinks that's painfully obvious.

Front door. Severely weathered. Beat-up looking mailbox. He's known what the image is for a while now, but the difficult part, the mystery, is front door to what?

Her heart, he thinks to himself. And yeah, he really _has_ gone soft. But if he gets a decorative key in the space for 25 on his advent calendar, he might tear up. The key to her heart? How could he not?

"Castle!" she bellows from his bedroom.

There goes soft.

"What?" he yells back, abandoning the puzzle to see what she's whining about.

"Over-sprayed," she coughs out, waving her hand in front of her face in the bathroom. She's just stepped out of the shower, towel enticingly loose around her body, but she's making a wretched face.

"Over-"

"I like it, obviously, because I _gave_ it to you, but jeez. Too much. It's clogging my throat."

Oh. His cologne. He might have - yes, okay, he did get a little excited that she put cologne in today's window, but she _put cologne in today's window._ What was he supposed to do?

Her face screws up as she comes in closer to him, cautiously sniffing, her nose wrinkling in that adorable way she has that - jeez, really? she's whiny and nose-wrinkled and only in a towel as she berates him for spraying too much cologne and it's turning him on?

Not exactly one of his top five fantasies, but she covers those too. And yes. Okay.

It turns him on a little.

She lets go of her towel and it stays up, it stays, darn, but she's flat-footed and her body is warm and even through the sharp scent of cologne he can smell her shampoo and soap and the freshness of water.

Kate leans in and puts her nose to his neck, breathes in so deeply that he can feel her chest expand against his. He cups her shoulders and tries not to want her so much. It's a lost cause.

"You smell good," she murmurs at his skin, her tongue coming out to touch him. And then her head jerks back, mouth pursed, and that's not at all the direction he thought this was heading.

"What are you-"

"Gross. You smell good but you don't taste very good," she complains, running her tongue sharply over her teeth like she's scraping it off. "Ew. Gotta remember that."

"I'll spray it on my shirt instead," he laughs, shifting his hand to her neck and curling in her hair. She could come back over here, closer, get closer-

"Oh, no," she murmurs back. "Don't do that. I like the way it smells on your skin."

Oh, really?

And she's blushing already, dipping her head to avoid his eyes, putting her face against the open collar of his shirt. She feels good against him; she feels right. And the funny thing is, he's pretty sure he couldn't have said that about her two years ago, four years ago, even in those months before last Christmas when he felt like he was hopelessly in love with her.

Maybe because now he has hope. Maybe because now there's not even any _need_ for hope when it comes to loving Kate Beckett.

It just is.

"I'm glad we waited for this," he says quietly, cupping the back of her head, the wet strands of her hair tangling around his fingers.

She laughs. "Are you messing with me?"

"No." He draws his arm around her ribs and pulls her hips against his. "Not at all. This was worth the wait."

She sighs out against his neck, warm and slow. "Love you too, Castle."

* * *

He takes her by the fingers and draws the back of her hand to his mouth, kisses her softly. She walks a little closer to him, the layers of their coats between them, and when the wind blasts down the busy street, she pushes in tighter and he wraps his arm around her shoulders.

"Look at that one," he murmurs and draws her to another storefront. Snowflakes fall down the window pane, a carpet of fluffy and sparkly white inside as a display for hiking boots. She touches the glass with her free hand, hums under her breath.

"It's textured paint," she says. "Pretty."

He touches the glass, but his eyes catch another store window and he tugs her down the sidewalk. "Oh, I love this."

"Looks like you," she laughs. Huge metallic ornaments hang from the ceiling, mannequins in formal dress, the scene of a rocking party. "Hey, look down there-"

He follows her this time and they pause before a jewelry store, all in soft cream and the palest blue. Paper birch tree branches with white lights, the soft and thin bark peeling away. In the middle is an advent calendar in the triangle of a Christmas tree, all the appropriate doors open and sparkling gems inside each window.

"Maybe next year-"

"No!" Kate says, gripping his hand tightly and tugging him against her. "No, Castle. You will _not_ make me an Advent calendar filled with jewelry."

He sighs. "You're no fun."

* * *

The moment twilight falls, the city comes alive with lights.

Christmas trees on almost every corner, multi-colored strands decorating apartment windows, displays on rooftops, skyscrapers lit up with red and green. Kate laces her fingers through his despite how cold it is without gloves, and she lets some of the magic steal over her as night descends.

They left Manhattan on the red line, the subway taking them out to Brooklyn, and now that they're surrounded by residential homes, the displays are less overwhelming, more kitschy, but no less beautiful.

Dyker Heights, just like last year, is an amazing panorama of Christmas spirit.

And the man beside her in the darkness hasn't let go of her hand since Broadway. And won't. Will never.

And next year, maybe she'll help him put out the lights-

Well, Kate, stay in the moment.

She absorbs the lights that dance and twinkle, the green and red washing over them, the families on the sidewalk enjoying the night's gift. Kate spots an eight or nine year old girl, her hair staticky and waving in the cold air, her cheeks red and her eyes reflecting the lights. She holds an older sister's hand and the two girls stare.

They don't even move; they just stare.

Kate follows their line of sight to the grand home before them, stately even with the eight reindeer and Rudolph and Santa's sleigh. But more than that, the huge tree is ringed with Christmas roses, blooming in light pink and red, a fine covering of frost on their leaves.

The display lights hit the roses just right, making them look like pale fairy skin, all smiling cheeks and fluttering wings.

"Your girls are precious," a woman leans in, snagging Kate's coat with a smile.

"Oh, no, they're not-"

"Yikes! Where's Mom?" the older girl says, glancing around. But almost immediately her shoulders ease and she drags the younger girl down the sidewalk with her, stopping about four houses ahead and sliding in next to an older woman.

Castle nudges her hip and she glances back to him, sees his face soft in the shadows.

_Please don't comment. Please don't ruin-_

She feels his fingers playing at the buttons of her coat and then his hand slipping inside and under her sweater to her skin.

"I thought nothing could be better than last year's," he says quietly. "But I was wrong."

This is better.


	25. Dec 24 - I can be the answer to it all

_December 24 - I can be the answer to it all_

* * *

Castle listens to the music abstractedly, half-hearing the words, moved more by the sounds than their meaning, and the early morning light is clear and cold as it comes in the windows of his study.

Christmas Eve.

It has such a presence. So much bound up in today, and this may be the only time he's excited to wake up on a Monday - who loves Mondays, right? - and he knows he's getting a little ahead of himself.

He knows Kate's not. . .all gung-ho about Christmas. But she's agreed to Christmas Eve with him, she's coming over - will be here soon actually, so he should get a move on.

Castle dawdles at his desk, sinks down in the chair and leans back, resting his eyes and letting the song she picked out flow over him. It's possible he dozes off, but the song's on repeat and he finds himself aware again somewhere near the beginning, so he sits up and tugs open his right hand drawer for his notes.

He pulls out the notebook and pen and flips it open only to laugh.

Kate's found it.

He listed out each day's song and a few choice lyrics, and beside that are his musings about what their meaning could be, what she might see in them, and then he also catalogued the gift and what it's trying to say as well.

And Kate's stuck a neon purple post-it note over his carefully thought out sketches and ideas. (He doesn't even own purple post-its; where did she get it?)

In her precise, murder board print, the note reads: _Really, sugar? Think again._

When Anne called him sugar during their _Make someone's Christmas _volunteering and Kate gave him that look of held-back laughter, he knew it'd come back again. He knew it. Same look she had on her face when she heard him get called kitten.

Castle chuckles to himself and smooths his fingers over the note, then pulls it off his page and presses it against the silver frame of his photo of Alexis and his mother. He flicks it once and goes back to his notepad, adds in today's song and gift.

Sugar. Uh-huh. I got your number, Kate Beckett.

* * *

She stands in the hallway outside his front door and rocks back on her heels trying to gain enough forward momentum to propel her inside. Or at least knock.

She thought, going into it, that starting the day with him would ease her into it, let her get acclimated to his Christmas-high altitude.

Now that it's nine o'clock and she's thirty minutes late for her own personal deadline and the day is actually here, she's not sure.

Maybe she should have spent the night at his place and just. . .woken up to it. Maybe Christmas cheer would have seeped in through her pores and her melancholy would have leaked out like osmosis and she wouldn't be Detective Beckett the thirty-something with a dead mother, but Kate the woman who thinks this just might be it.

Might be?

It is.

This is it.

Jeez, she needs to just open the door. Unlock it - not knock like she's a guest, like this is a year ago and she doesn't know her place. She knows; she's not that woman any longer.

She hikes her bag higher on her shoulder and lets her keys jingle as she finds the right one, pushes it into his lock. It opens easily and she comes inside, using her bag to shut the door, and when she turns back around, unwinding her scarf and her nose still cold from the wind, Castle is watching her from the kitchen.

"Hey," she says in a rush of breath. Had she been holding it?

"Morning," he says, and then he grins a little at her. He holds up his spoon. "Having breakfast. You hungry?"

"No. Already ate." She sets her bag carefully on the floor, drops her scarf over it, then changes her mind and heads for the closet. She gets out a hanger and takes off her coat, hangs it up with her scarf because she knows he likes that better than her leaving her stuff by the door like she'll escape at any moment.

Ug. Why is she so nervous? This is ridiculous.

Kate turns around and heads purposefully for him in the kitchen, doing her best to ignore the massive amount of Christmas decorations he's added to his loft - one by one - over the last few weeks. Oh no. Is that a _train set_?

No. She needs to work her way to train set. This first.

Castle is quiet, studying her with a crooked smile on his face, because he knows. He knows what the overkill is doing to her, and he's kind of enjoying it. Isn't he?

Whatever.

She slips in between him and the bar where he's standing to eat his cereal and she grips the waistband of his pajama pants. His grin gets a little more crooked, his eyes a drowning blue, and she slides her cold fingers against his skin.

Castle yelps, shying away from her touch even as he brings an arm around her, like he wants both to keep her and to not suffer the consequences of keeping her. She grins and leans in for a quick kiss to his mouth, milk and cornflakes, and huh, a little added sugar?

He grins back, mirth making his eyes shine like Christmas lights. He did that on purpose, the sugar. She can taste it on her tongue now. Kate takes a quick look at the bowl on the counter behind her and gasps, rolling her eyes.

"How much sugar did you put on those, Castle?"

"Enough so you'd notice."

"And what if I hadn't come in at this exact second?"

"What can I say?" he shrugs. "I guess I'd have just enjoyed my delicious, sugary cornflakes. Win-win."

She shakes her head but hooks her arm around his neck and brings his forehead in to touch hers, amused and grateful. He knows her, and he's going to drag her into Christmas with him.

But he probably thinks he can charm her there first.

"Timing is everything," she murmurs and kisses him again, long and slow, to get at more of his happiness.

* * *

Castle finishes changing into his jeans and a flannel shirt, buttoning the last of it as he finally decides to just go for it.

His family opens presents on Christmas Eve, and he did warn her.

He wants to give her the chance at some privacy though. So he'll sneak out now and find her gift under the tree and make her open it before his daughter gets up.

Castle stalks with bare feet down the hallway and towards the living room, the lights of the tree glittering in the dark hall. The shadows of branches and the riot of color loom large, but he didn't turn the Christmas lights on. Who-

Kate Beckett is kneeling before his Christmas tree - their tree, really, since she helped so much - and running her fingers over the lowest limbs, skirting ornaments and needles and seemingly just taking in the whole thing, absorbing it into her skin.

"Kinda thwarting my plan here, Detective."

She lifts her head. "What plan?"

"Sneaking this out to give to you," he says, reaching under the tree and grabbing the small, wrapped gift he got for her days ago.

She grins slowly but bites her bottom lip as if to hold it back. "Already?"

"Yeah. Not in front of everyone. Just us."

Her eyes startle up to his like a flock of birds taking to the sky. "Everyone? You open presents. . .when, Castle?"

"After Christmas Eve dinner, of course."

"What?"

He grins even wider. "You knew that."

"You can't open presents on Christmas Eve," she sputters, the box still clutched in her hand. "What do you do on Christmas Day?"

"Open presents from Santa."

She shakes her head. "But Santa - Castle. That's ridiculous. What do you do now?"

"What do you mean _now_? And it's not ridiculous."

"I mean now that no one in your house is under the age of three," she mutters.

"Alexis believed in Santa Claus until she was eight, thank you very much. Nearly nine. I almost got her."

"Eight?"

"Don't look at me like that," he says, narrowing his eyes. "And we still get presents from Santa."

She narrows her eyes right back. "Who is _we_?"

He huffs. She has presents from Santa under his tree as well.

"Castle, isn't that just. . ."

"If you say ridiculous-"

"No, no, sorry," she says, standing up and coming to him, her gift clutched to her chest and her other hand soothing his forearm. "I'm. . .I'm surprised and maybe a little overwhelmed by all of this, and I shouldn't question-"

"But that's what you do, that's what we do, Kate. Question. We build theory and poke holes into it."

She laughs a little and wraps an arm around his waist, lifts on her toes to kiss him softly. "But these are your Christmas traditions and I know it's important. Let me open my gift, okay?"

"No, no," he smirks at her, nudging the little box in her hands. "You went through all that about it being ridiculous and now that you've got a present, you're switching sides?"

She steps away from him, holding it close, already getting her fingers under the tape. "Can't take it back now. Besides, I'll win you over. My way or the highway, Castle. Besides, when it's our kids-"

They both stop; his heart is pounding and her eyes are wide, so wide, and he can't help bringing a hand to her hip and rubbing his thumb at the taut skin trembling with her ab muscles. He pulls her a little closer. Not too much. Just a little. SO she knows he's okay with whatever else comes after that sentence.

He nods at the present. "Open it."

She drops her gaze to the gift, her fingers fumbling stupidly at it for a long moment, and he knows she's gathering herself back together. But that's fine. They've sorta talked about marriage, and they've now sorta talked about kids, and maybe tonight he'll have some daydreams he shouldn't, but that's okay.

She finally peels the tape back and gets the paper unwrapped. "I can tell you did it yourself - a lot of tape on this, Castle." And then she's opening the little blue velvet box.

Her face lights up, that shy and hopeful smile, and she fingers the necklace before she looks at him.

"I loved this one the most," she whispers.

"Really?" he murmurs, pleased with himself for choosing right. She liked them all, of course; they went through the store together. But this one appealed to him for lots of reasons.

Mostly because it's a promise.

She hands the box to him as she draws the delicate gold chain out of it, then releases the clasp with her thumbnail and puts it on herself. The infinity symbol is fixed at either end by the gold links, so that it's not a pendant but a permanent piece of the necklace itself. Like it was made all of one piece.

"Always," she murmurs, touching the infinity with her fingertips and smiling at him.

"Exactly," he breathes out, dropping the box to the couch.

She reaches for him and slides her fingers through the hair at his nape, drawing closer even as he leans into her. Her lips touch his softly, her tongue darts out to play at the seam of his mouth before sliding inside, full and rich.

He doesn't work at this kiss; he just lets it happen, moving in rhythm with her and letting his fingers glide to her neck, tracing the gold chain until he tangles in her hair. He strokes at her hip with his other hand and remembers-

"Kate," he says on a breath, nipping at her lips as she draws away.

"Yeah?"

"This is what Christmas Eve is for. And then on Christmas Day - the kids can go crazy over Santa, and we can watch."

Her pulse flutters under his fingers, her breath quickens.

He waits, not knowing how this will go but just knowing it needs to be said, addressed somehow, and then she lifts her forehead from his and looks him in the eyes.

"That's what you think. I bet. . ." She trails off and rubs her fingertips against his lips, leans in to press her mouth to his jaw and work back to his ear. "I bet the second I push, you cave like a big, sappy mess."

And he's not sure if she means push him on the issue or push like. . .push. As in. A baby.

"We'll talk about this later," he mutters finally, his mind filled with stories he can't possibly tell her. Yet. Yet? No. The possibility and the reality are two entirely different things and he-

"Thank you for my gift," she says quietly.

He lets out a shuddering breath and wraps his arms around her, grateful for that too. "It's a promise, Kate."

"I know," she answers. "And I love your promises."

* * *

"What are you doing?" he says, nudging into her at the kitchen counter.

"Making your carrot soufflé. Buzz off," she mutters, narrowing her eyes at him. He gave her the recipe card and told her if she really wanted to help with Christmas dinner, then have at it.

Christmas dinner is actually set for four o'clock, because Castle said she'd inevitably get a call, and she can't deny that she has the worst luck sometimes. _They _ have the worst luck, but-

"Yeah, but I'm watching you and the recipe calls for-"

"That's too much sugar, _sugar_." She smirks at him and he steps back, rethinking his avenue of approach apparently. And in the pause she continues. "Less is more, right? I promise it will taste better this way."

"Beckett, nothing tastes better with less sugar."

"You'll see. Let me make it my way. It's not like less sugar is going to ruin your Christmas dinner," she says, bumping his hip with her own.

"Hey, Dad." Alexis comes back through the living room and settles at the bar with a wrapped gift she stole from under the tree. "This one first. Okay?"

"Is that one from you?" he asks, and Kate eases the bowl away from him, puts the lid back on the sugar just in case he tries to sneak more into the mix.

"Duh. It's from me," Alexis says, rolling her eyes.

"Just wanted to make sure it's not from Kate," he says, and just by the tone of his voice, she can tell he's messing with her. "Because Kate's gifts aren't to be opened until tomorrow. New family rule."

"Whatever," she mutters. "Fine. Open presents. But you can't have yours until tomorrow."

"Doesn't matter anyway," Alexis says with a shrug. "I already know what she got you for Christmas."

Rick gasps and turns wide eyes to Kate. "What?"

She can't help the laugh that bubbles up, has to press her lips together to keep a stern face. "Tomorrow. No sooner. That's what the Advent calendar is for."

"Why does Alexis know what you're getting me? I thought we said _not in front of the child_-"

"Ew, ew, ew," Alexis groans. "Come on."

"Castle," she mutters, wishing she wasn't wearing her boots so she could kick him.

"Then it's not something naughty?"

She might kick him anyway.

"Da-ad," Alexis grumps. "It's something good. _Nice. _And-"

Kate lifts an eyebrow at her, but the girl falls silent, blushing. Kate nods. "No more hints, Alexis. He's had all month to guess. Every day a clue."

"It's too hard," he mutters. There's not a trace of a whine in his voice though, which lets her know he likes it. A lot. "And all my guesses have been completely dismissed."

"Really, Castle. Key to my heart? That's mushy and ridiculous."

"But so very true," he leers, leaning in close and brushing his cheek against hers. The scrape of his skin and his breath at her ear actually make her shiver. He hums in pleasure and kisses her.

And even though she can see Alexis right there, she can't help kissing him back.

He already has the key to her heart.

But she's not _saying_ that.

* * *

When her phone vibrates angrily on the side table, everyone stops opening their gifts and turns to look at Kate.

Castle is glad now that he insisted on an early dinner. Looks like he was right. Martha makes a shooing motion with her hand and puts down the scarf that Kate got for her, all of them waiting.

Beckett sighs and unfolds herself from his side, reaches behind her for the phone on the table behind the couch. "But you keep going, Alexis," she murmurs. "I want to see what it is before I leave."

"You know what it is," he says softly, peering over her shoulder as she checks the message. _Call Dispatch._ A body then.

"It's a body drop," she mutters, tilting her head against his shoulder. He pushes the half-open shirt box off his lap and lifts his hand to cup the side of her face, kissing her hair.

"Figured it was," he says back softly.

She's a cop; that doesn't change. But he's encouraged by how much Kate herself has changed. Enough so that the reluctance is in every line of her body as she gets off the couch.

He stands with her, but stops in front of the coffee table as Alexis opens the present she was working on before the call. She laughs out loud at the Chia pet that Castle got for her. "Dad. This is hilarious."

"For your dorm. Thought it might make you laugh."

She's getting up and wriggling into a hug, all eight year old energy again for one brief moment. Like it used to be before she got serious and grown-up. He grins and kisses the top of her head, lets her snuggle in his arms for a moment.

But his eyes track Kate as she gathers her stuff. She allowed for the Christmas presents she bought his family to be opened after dinner, magnanimous of her, so there's not a whole lot to take, but he can see that it's everything.

It's not-coming-back-tonight everything.

Alexis nudges him and he gives her a little grateful smile, heads over to Kate standing in his entryway.

"I know you're working tomorrow," he starts hesitantly.

"You'll see me," she says, lifting her eyes to his so sharply, so clear, that he rocks back on his heels. Kate comes at him with a fierce kiss, her tongue ruthless and her body transitioning from warm and sated and happy to that quick tension and alertness for the job, her arms like steel around his back, holding him close.

"I'll see you," he echoes, because even though it doesn't sound like good-bye, it is.

"You will. I promise, Castle. I told you I was working. But I promise. I'll be there."

And then she kisses him again and bumps her forehead into his, her breath fast and shallow, before she releases him and heads out the door.

She said she'll be there.

Where is _there_?


	26. Dec 25 - Love can't be more than this

_December 25 - No one could love so deeply as I feel you love me now_

* * *

Castle bounces awake at six in the morning - thanks to his daughter jumping on his bed.

"Alexis?" he groans, shifting onto his back and blinking through the dim light. The sun hasn't even risen yet.

"Merry Christmas, Dad."

"Why are you. . ." He groans and rubs a hand down his face, can't quite sit up yet. It is really early. "The last time you came running in to wake me for Christmas you were seven years old."

"It's only fair," she says, dropping down beside him, jostling the bed a little. "You woke me up from the time I was two until. . .probably until that one time when I was seven."

He grins up at the ceiling and turns his head to look at his daughter. "Yeah. True."

"I'm supposed to be here when you open the advent calendar."

At that, he sits up.

Alexis is biting her lip and grinning at him.

"You are?"

"Uh-huh. There's a. . .timetable."

"Oh really?"

She nods, then leans in to kiss his cheek. "I'll be in the living room when you're ready."

Alexis jumps back up and runs out of his room, looking almost as excited as he feels.

Shower first?

No.

Advent.

Castle slides his feet out of bed and leans forward, reaching towards the advent calendar and catching his nail in the casement window. His heart pounds and shakes his arm, makes it that much harder to open today's - the last one for the year.

He was afraid he'd be sad that it was over, but he's not. He's too curious, too excited for what comes next.

So he opens the window.

* * *

Keys.

More than one key and tied together with a red velvet ribbon. Antique looking, heavy. A dark metal. The last photo is curled around the two keys and he smooths it flat with his thumbs.

_our_

Our. Front. Door.

The photo springs back up, curling as his shock makes his hands go numb, and he sees print on the back.

_208 West 11th Street_

_Come find me._

* * *

Alexis laughs and pushes on his back, shoving him towards the door. "Go, go, go."

He showered in two minutes flat and he feels completely out of sorts, and not at all prepared, but-

"But it's Christmas Day," he says, hesitating in the entry even as his daughter shoves him. "The presents from Santa."

"Whatever, Dad. This has been going on since before Thanksgiving, and I'm more excited for this than Santa."

"What?" He twists around and captures her by the elbows. "Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah," she grins. "Now go."

"You're not coming?"

"This is a you and Kate thing."

His heart is pounding so hard. His mouth is dry. And his daughter is pushing him out of the loft.

* * *

Kate's leaning against the front stoop of the house in Greenwich Village, waiting on Richard Castle to show up.

Alexis texted her the moment he left the loft, and she figures he's walking here because it's really not that far - kind of the point - but despite her nonchalant posture, she's crazy nervous.

It's a tree-lined street, close to a public park, and charming really. She fell in love the moment she saw it, the whole area really, and it feels like-

Castle.

He's rounding the corner from 7th Avenue, his hair lifting in the wind, and she can see the curious, cautious smile on his face.

And he brought coffee.

She stands up straight and rocks forward on her heeled boots, comes towards him a little ways, but can't seem to move past the circle of this address.

"Kate?"

She bites her lip, the whole twenty-five days suspended between them, and he stops at the bottom of the stairs and glances up to the front door.

Their front door.

But he glances back to her and hands her a coffee. She clutches it against her chest like a talisman.

He's speechless.

And all her words have flown.

* * *

It's beautiful old brick, tones of red and slate. The front stoop is only four steps up, a black wrought iron railing that leads to the front door - a weathered blue and grey that's seen better days, the mailbox listing to one side.

She bought a house.

And she's not saying a word.

Castle pulls out the two keys from his pocket, the ribbon wrapped around his fist and the metal of the keys warm now from his skin. The sun has started to shine low on the eastern horizon, and Kate is bundled up against the day in her leather jacket and boots.

She reaches out and takes him by the wrist holding his coffee. "You. . .want to go inside?"

He starts mechanically for the stairs, tripping up the steps along with his fumbling, terrified heart, and Kate takes a different key out of her pocket and does the honors. Her silver key goes into the new-looking lock just above the door knob, double doors really, but she only opens one side.

When the door swings out, a rush of warm, spiced air falls over him and dark wood meets his eyes.

They both stand on the stoop at the front door for a heartbeat, neither venturing farther inside, until Kate clears her throat.

"I have to-"

And she steps inside the enclosed foyer, her heels loud on the parquet floor as she moves to an ornate piece of art hanging on the far wall. Suddenly, Kate is opening it like a door and he sees an alarm panel behind it, silently flashing.

He takes a step over the threshold. The floors creak under his shoes and he notices a door on his left and a door on his right.

"You don't have to like it," she says again, turning to him.

He fingers the two keys still in his hand and finally looks at her. "One of the songs you gave me. It said. . .three doors to go through?"

Something fills her eyes, something hopeful, and she nods, glancing past the dark wood and white walls to the two wide doors on either side of them. "Used to be a duplex. But they knocked down the walls between the common spaces. Still, one side for. . ."

He glances to the right and then back left again. _I only want the one that leads to you._

"When did you close on it?" he says finally, looking at those two doors.

"Closed on the house two days ago," she says softly. "And I sneaked the keys into your calendar yesterday."

She pockets the front door key again, staring at him, but her eyes are so very vulnerable.

"You don't have to like it. You don't have to-"

"Show me around, Kate."

* * *

She lets him unlock the left side, and they start there.

The kitchen is licked with light. The cherry wood finish to the sleek cabinets give back the white early morning sun that streams in through the three large windows. The appliances are all chrome, the granite countertops almost an exact match to Castle's own. She loves the island in the middle and the breakfast nook opposite, and even though there's no dining room, she thinks he likes it too.

That's important.

He leaves his coffee on the counter, and since she's too nervous to finish hers, she leaves hers with his. It looks right.

It looks very right.

"Three bedrooms on this side," she continues, leading him down the narrow hallway towards the living room - which she doesn't love, but anything can be redone. "Two on the other. Three and a half bathrooms total."

"Five. Wow."

He's standing so very still in the living room, his eyes taking in everything, and she wonders if he notices the dumbwaiter built into the brick, or the original wainscotting. Elements that were so very difficult to find in her - their - price range. Now that it's empty, it looks better than she remembered.

The living room is below street level, so the windows are set high into the front wall, but the space feels colder than she'd like. She moves him quickly towards the back stairs and up towards the bedrooms above.

She can feel him crowding at her back, but his silence has been unnerving. She's grateful when he speaks again.

"What was just past the living room?" he says as they go up.

She hurried through it because she wants to get upstairs. "A sunroom that leads to a back patio. Former occupants used it as a playroom."

She hears his breath catch and her heart is just beating out of her chest. It's too much. There are five bedrooms. She knew it was too much, but after Tyson, it was the only thing she could think to give him that he didn't already have. The only thing she wanted to give.

Home.

She shows him the two bedrooms that lead immediately off the stairs, but he stands in the threshold and doesn't comment. His eyes are round and taking in everything, so she pushes him through the door at the end of the hallway just before the master bedroom. Leave that for last.

"Alexis claimed the right side," she says as they step through. It looks like a mirror to where they just were. "And we can leave the dividing door open. Take it off its hinges even."

She moves slowly to the empty bedroom with the gorgeous wood floor and the pale cream walls. "The right hand door leads straight up here through stairs at the front. When she saw it, she said this is her room."

"Alexis?" he asks, taking a step towards her and glancing around.

"We saw the place together the first time. When it was still filled with furniture. It's a big room."

"So she can come and go as she pleases," he says, giving her a crooked smile.

She nods slowly.

"And Mother. . .right next door," he laughs.

Kate shakes her head. "Not. . .she's seen the place too. But no."

Castle looks confused, but she reaches out and takes him by the hand, laces their fingers together and tugs him back through the narrow duplex doorway and into the left side hall. Their bedroom is at the end, dark furnishings that are gone now, but the touch of masculine sophistication still remains in the dove grey trim, the matching curtain rods the former owners left, and the built-in bookcases.

He comes to a stop behind her, only halfway into the master bedroom, but she tugs him on inside and heads for one of the two doors.

"That one is a walk-in closet. But this is an attached office," she says quietly and opens it up. More built-in bookcases here, and a shallow closet as well, plus one wide and beautiful window. The view from the front of the house is interlaced with winter tree branches that will bloom and green in summer. Leaf shadows will dapple the walls.

"Kate," he chokes out.

And suddenly, he comes up behind her, his grip so strong as he slides his arms around her and buries his face into her neck. Her hips bumps back against his, clutched by the wide frame of him. She presses her hands over his grip, smoothing her fingertips down his forearms, turning her head slightly to breathe against his cheek.

"Castle?"

"What did you do? How did you. . .I need to know what you're thinking, Kate, because I just don't - you have to tell me what you're thinking."

She swallows hard and takes in the empty office in front of her, closes her eyes to regain the image she had when she first saw it - that brilliant and fierce image of his desk and his books and the way he'd look with his laptop across his thighs and his chair turned towards the window and how she would come in from the bedroom and he'd look over his shoulder at her with the sunlight or the starshine on his face.

"Kate."

"I want us. . .to move in. Together. Our own space. The left side door, Castle. But it's not - you don't have to like it. Just - any place. Any place at all. Even the loft."

"Kate," he murmurs.

She squeezes his hands and turns around, breaking his embrace as she moves, tries to get enough distance between them so that she can say this right. Without messing it up.

He's blinking and glancing around the office dazedly and his mouth opens before she can get to it. "How can you possibly afford this?"

"I can't," she admits. "I can't afford it. It's over six million dollars."

He gapes at her, a strangled laugh popping out of his mouth. "Kate."

"I had some help with the down payment. Dad. And Alexis apparently has access to emergency funds. But the money - that we can work out later, if you like it. If you don't like it, if you don't want to move in with me, then I can sell-"

"Don't want to - _why_ wouldn't I want-"

"Hold on," she says, stopping him with her hand against his mouth. "Let me say my. . .my speech. So it all makes sense." Unlike last year, when she completely fumbled it.

His hands shove back into his pockets in that familiar gesture she's seen so many times, knows so well. He's trying to be good, to hold back. To wait for her.

She takes a long look at the office around them, then finally at him again. "This is for us," she starts, and she can hear how shaky her voice is. "And I know it's too much, but I had this feeling that you kinda like the grand gestures."

His face breaks into an adorable smile, and his grin brings to life something warm in her chest.

"This is real, Castle. Real life. Our life. You've seen me dressed up and in heels, confident, happy. But you've also seen me. . .falling apart, lying, hurting, bleeding, trying to recover but doing it gracelessly. And I've seen you. Through murder charges and jail and your ex-wives and chest signings." That gets a twist of his lips, and she smiles back softly. "And loyalty, patience-"

"Who would've thought?" he chuckles.

"Patience," she repeats. "Courage. Curiosity. Strength. And a huge, huge. . .heart."

He laughs, and she thinks maybe she _is_ doing this right.

"All of it, Castle. Good and bad. And yet, here we are. I know you, and you know me, and after all this time. . .I want it. You. So here's our life together. That's what I'm trying to give you. If you'll have it - have me. A life together."

His arms are around her and his body colliding with hers before she even sees him coming; she huffs out a surprised breath and feels him squeezing, her feet leaving the floor and his mouth seeking hers somewhere between the crush of their bodies.

She kisses him back hesitantly, nervously, because this house is too much; it's too much, and she knows it is. Five bedrooms. Six million dollars, and if he doesn't want it, then she can't make the first month's payment and holy crap, what has she done?

"You don't have to like it," she murmurs, trying to convince herself. "I don't even care if you don't like it, really." Oh, but she does. "Just so long as you're okay with the whole idea of us-"

"I love it," he groans, and his forehead crashes into hers. "Kate, you bought me a house."

"I bought us a house, Castle. Us. Promise not to change the locks on me?"

He laughs and presses his mouth to hers for a kiss that breaks open her heart and lets all the wild and unlooked-for joy come spilling out.

* * *

"Your mother wants the loft," she says quietly.

Castle bursts into laughter and leans his head back against the wall. They're camped out downstairs in the empty living room. "I figured as much."

"Alexis likes it," she says and he can see she's still uncertain. About him or the place or something.

"Good. She gets the right side all to herself apparently."

Kate bites her lip and ducks her head, sitting cross-legged before the windows, her hair shining in the sun. It's not even noon on Christmas Day and they're sitting in _their house._

"You bought me a house," he laughs, running a hand over his jaw as he stares at her. And then remembers. "With five bedrooms."

She scrapes a hand through her hair and glances away from him, her shoulders coming up.

Okay, he'll drop that for now. The sunroom that was a playroom, the two bedrooms on the same side as the master, the light blue walls-

He'll drop it for now.

"Kate Beckett," he murmurs and sees her turn her head back to him. "Come over here."

She draws her knees up and stands; he remains sitting, leaning against the side of the fireplace, holding his arms wide so she'll sit with him. She pauses a moment before settling down at his side, in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder.

"You bought me a house. When are - do you have stuff packed?"

"Some," she admits. "But you kept coming over to my place. So after Christmas, I'll finish."

"Have you hired a moving company?"

"Yes."

"You have the money for that?"

She squirms and he lifts his hand to brush his fingers through her hair, presses his lips to her forehead. "Let me do that."

"Castle-"

"I'll have them come over to my place afterwards. It'll be easier. Faster too. Moving expenses on me. Then we'll talk about the monthly payments and all that."

He can feel the way her heart kicks up. His is slow and steady because this is right. This is exactly right. He's wanted this. Just didn't expect it quite like. . .this.

Moving in together. Wow.

"You bought me a house," he laughs, cups her jaw with his palm and leans down to brush a kiss over her frowning mouth. "And that was one awesome looking alarm system."

She shivers and turns in his arms, presses up from his chest to look at him. "It is, actually. And it's easy to upgrade as well. Plus I figured we could get a security door to replace that battered thing out there."

"I kinda love that old thing," he murmurs back. "A little paint, maybe one of those wrought-iron security doors in front of it?"

She smiles, a slow and hopeful thing. "Yeah. Okay."

"And your couch - I like your couch better than mine, Beckett. It goes in the playroom."

An eyebrow raise but it's accompanied by the glimmer of amusement. "Oh, really?"

"Naps in the playroom. Perfect place for it. Keep my stuffy one in here."

"It's a sunroom, Castle."

"Playroom eventually."

She's biting her lower lip and her eyes are narrowed, but it's so not convincing.

"And my office just gets transferred right over. What about yours?" he murmurs, distracting her, stroking his fingers at her hip bones even as she lowers herself back to his chest.

"There are five bedrooms."

"Oh, true. Not like we're going to fill up all _five_ with-"

Her fingers come up to hold his lips closed. He grins around her touch and escapes to softly kiss her cheekbone, dragging his mouth down to her ear.

"Too late, Kate Beckett. You bought us a house."

And then she's kissing him back, straddling his lap and pushing herself right against him, strong and urgent and devouring.

And still somehow, so tender.

Her fingers curl at his ear and she gasps at the trail of his mouth. "Castle. Oh-"

He hums a question at her and slides his hands up under her sweater, starts tugging it off. "Let's get started on making it a home."

She laughs, a little breathless, and pulls back, her hands stilling at the buttons of his shirt.

"I love you, Castle."

"I know. It's kinda obvious, Beckett." He dips forward and claims her mouth, quick and ruthless until she shivers.

She tugs back a moment, cradles his jaw with a hand, playing with the hair at this nape with her fingers.

"Merry Christmas."


	27. New Year's Eve - New Start

_December 30 / New Year's Eve / New Year's Day - It's the sound of a new start_

* * *

He didn't meant for it to work out like this, but after they spent the whole weekend with the movers, Kate had to do everything Monday night after work while he had to clear up some last minute stuff regarding the deed to the loft. Still, he'd been at the new house the previous week supervising the contractor and the construction workers, making everything just right for tomorrow night.

The security door went in first, and a coat of sealant was added to the weathered blue monstrosity that he still won't get rid of. It's their front door - always will be. He had guys for that job, of course. Same guys took the duplex doors off their hinges and then knocked out the entry wall - thank goodness it wasn't load-bearing. The alarm company rewired it so that the panel is hidden just inside the kitchen, and he likes that a lot more.

Now when they come in the front door, when they come _home,_ the place is opened up to the kitchen, and through there to the living room. He likes being able to see all the way back, the whole space in one breath.

He thought maybe Kate wanted to keep the duplex look because she's the kind of person who comes home from a day at work and wants to escape, but she suggested taking the doors off herself, and then the architecture of the place lent itself to knocking down the wall.

The two old-fashioned keys on their red velvet ribbon hang on a hook just inside the front door. To the right is the staircase leading up, but so far every night, Kate's come straight through and found him in the kitchen, dropping her stuff on the table to wrap her arms around his waist or nudge his shoulder at the stove.

He likes having the kitchen be the heart of their home. The central place where everything radiates in spokes from. He's got ideas for more renovation, breaking down the wall in the kitchen to connect to the stairs. Maybe even take down the wall upstairs that divides the three bedrooms on one side and the two-

Well, he and Kate will talk about that later. For now, he's got to help her get ready for tomorrow night.

Alexis plans on splitting her time between the loft and the new house when she's out on break, but she left a ton of boxes in the room she picked out. They had a talk about it and she's excited; she was, apparently, the swing vote for this house and had gone around with Kate to look at five others.

He's still stunned that Kate bought a house. One she couldn't even afford without his help. She took a huge, blind step of faith - in him, in them - and he's still kind of dumbstruck about it. Still struggling to adjust to this new structure for their relationship.

The past week has moved so fast, and he nearly tells the cab driver the wrong address when he gets in, checks himself just in time.

"208 West 11th, please."

His new home.

* * *

Kate hears the crunch of his key in the lock, and then the knob twists and the door opens, letting in a gust of cold air. Castle comes inside, but she stays sitting at the breakfast nook, observing him until he notices her.

"Hey," he grins, a grocery bag in his hand. She wonders if he bought enough for both of them, whatever it is, or if he rightly assumed she's already had dinner. He dumps the bag on the floor and comes for her. "First night."

She gets to her feet, putting aside the book she'd been relaxing with, and lifts her chin to meet his soft mouth with her own, their kiss gentle and a little hesitant. He brings a hand up to her neck, two fingers sliding into her hair where he fiddles with it, watching her.

"Hey," she murmurs back, giving him a slow smile. "First night. At least it will be quiet before tomorrow."

He steps back, sliding his hand down her arm, squeezing her elbow before he lets go, heads for his groceries. "Did you see the parking situation out there?"

"Crazy," she answers, following him into the kitchen. "That white Accord with California plates is new-"

"Two," he says, holding up two fingers and an eyebrow. "The white and then a navy Camaro, of all things, both from California. The black one has been taking my favorite spot."

She shakes her head. "White one has been taking mine." She's used her unmarked to ferry stuff back and forth from her place, or to be here with the contractors, in between work and everything else.

"The nerve of them. Why are they here anyway? Go back to California," he says, his tone low and complaining, but his eyes dancing.

"East coast bias," she warns, leaning a hip against the kitchen counter. Castle is pulling tubs of ice cream out of his bag - and only ice cream. She laughs and reaches across his body to tug the pint of Cherry Garcia from him. "Is this your dinner?"

"Already ate," he winces, his eyes shooting to hers. "I - I should've asked-"

"I already ate," she says back, shaking her head. "I didn't ask you either. Sorry."

"Works," he shrugs. He seems unwilling to condemn them for it.

"Hey, also?" she says, straightening up. "Have you heard that annoying car alarm somewhere on this block? It's a _voice_."

"What?" he laughs, shoving ice cream in the freezer. He glances inside and then back to her. "A voice on a car alarm? I haven't heard it."

"It's loud. Heard it twice tonight already. It's gonna keep me up. I can't believe you haven't - never mind. What do you care? You sleep like the dead."

"What can I say? It's a gift."

"It's annoying," she growls, prying open the pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream.

"Don't hate me just because you're an insomniac, Beckett." He hands her a spoon - one of the new, shiny ones, perfectly balanced, easier to manipulate than his old ones, or hers for that matter - and then he takes the container away from her, digs in.

They bought the silverware together. Stupid, really stupid, but she likes it. She needed it, actually, because somehow all his little projects and ideas and his spending money have kept her calm, rational about all of this. The way he's jumped right in means he really does like it. He's making it home.

"No bowl?" she sighs.

He shrugs.

"Straight out of the carton?" she asks. Maybe they should get bowls together? No, that would be really ridiculous. They spent money for the party, and there's the mortgage payment coming up - holy crap, she has a _mortgage _with Richard Castle.

"What is this?" he mutters, sliding ice cream off the spoon with his lips, talking around his mouthful. "You have rules about ice cream eating?"

"I have rules about everything, Castle," she says darkly, and then takes the pint away from him and shoves her spoon into it.

He cheers when she eats a bite straight from the carton, giving her that fake, crowd-applause with two hands cupped over his mouth, like he's her standing ovation.

Kate rolls her eyes. "I made tea."

"Oh?" he says, sounding entirely too grateful for just _tea_, but fine. Keep his expectations low.

"In the blue plastic pitcher."

"Oh jeez, Beckett. Blue plastic?" He snorts as he opens the fridge to see it. "And in this nice, fancy refrigerator. Where'd you get that thing? Wal-mart?"

Actually. "Shut up. We can't all be millionaires."

He waggles an eyebrow at her. "But at least you get to live with one. Higher standards here. Blue plastic. I have a ceramic jug that is quite nice, plus a glass pitcher with-"

"I think the blue plastic works just fine. Plus, I know how much to put in there. With your fancy, richy-rich containers-"

"Snarky."

"Work for you?" she says, switching gears.

"Does it for me, yeah," he gutters, his voice tripping over itself to get out. He comes closer, dropping his spoon in the sink, taking the ice cream out of her hands. "Let's go to bed."

"Subtle."

"When have I _ever_?" he gasps, as if he's affronted.

She just grins and tucks her fingers into his belt, tugs him closer. "Put your ice cream away, Castle. Then come christen the bed with me."

"Sorry you had to unpack stuff alone," he murmurs, his mouth already dragging at hers.

"You can make it up to me," she breathes out.

* * *

"I've never had New Year's Eve off before," she says quietly. "It feels wrong. It's all hands on deck at Times Square."

"Except Ryan," he points out. Esposito couldn't make it, but he got Ryan. And Beckett of course.

She narrows her eyes at him, considering.

He laughs into her soft silence and brushes his fingers over her bare hip. He's already dressed, and he shouldn't tease, but he likes being here to see this. Beckett getting ready in their bedroom, the way she moves from spot to spot - dresser, bathroom, closet - just to do one more thing. It's not organized at all, the way she gets dressed, but it's soothing.

She's pushing her other earring into her ear, head tilted, the hoops dangling and yellow in the lamplight. Their bedroom is a mess of boxes and stuff shoved into corners; neither of them had the time to finish upstairs. But downstairs is ready.

She nudges on him, still in just her underwear, and goes to the closet for her dress. A new one, black with deep hints of brilliant gold, that hugs her hips and dips low at her back, wow, so low, and she turns to him.

"Zip me up?"

They did this once. In a hotel room in LA when she came to the premiere of Nikki Heat with him. And now they're here, in their own quiet bedroom in Greenwich Village with the smooth and soft expanse of her skin under his fingers once more.

He brushes aside the wave of her tumbling hair and kisses the top of her spine while his thumb guides the zipper up.

"Ready?" he murmurs.

"Shoes. And then, yeah. Ready."

Not what he meant.

* * *

Kate stiffens when the doorbell rings, but she beats him to the door, her palms damp and her heart thudding. She pulls it open to find Martha and Alexis on the other side, laughs at his daughter's inquisitive face and the wine she's holding up.

"Hey, now. You're not supposed to have that," Castle chides over her shoulder, reaching past Kate to tug his family inside. "And you both have keys. What're you ringing the doorbell for?"

Martha snorts and pushes on his shoulder as they move inside. "We will be knocking before we come inside for a good while yet. You two should have fair warning."

Kate groans even as his mother laughs, Alexis raising an eyebrow and glancing around the entryway.

"Wow, it looks awesome in here. Dad. You knocked out the wall?"

"Yeah, you like?"

"It's so open now. Warm."

Kate grins and takes her by the elbow. "Come see what your dad did to the rest of it."

She's just pulled her into the kitchen when the doorbell rings again, and Castle, still holding the wine brought from his own loft, turns back to the entry. Alexis shrugs Kate off and pushes her towards Castle. "Go answer your front door."

Kate bites her bottom lip and her stomach is churning again, but she comes to stand beside Castle as he reaches for the knob. She can sense his family right behind her and she glances once more around the house - the open space, the bright lights, the combination of their two personalities into one.

"Ready?" he says softly.

She turns back to him and nods; he opens the door to their guests.

* * *

"This place is amazing," Lanie whistles, putting her foot on the stairs and arching an eyebrow. "Mind if I go up?"

"It's a wreck upstairs," Kate warns but follows her friend.

It's dark in the hallway but even with a drink in her hand, Lanie seems confident in her steps. She stops at the first bedroom and Kate joins her, glancing inside.

"We haven't done anything up here."

Lanie traces her fingers over a painting that hung in Kate's living room. "You guys fight over what goes up, what goes where?"

"Yeah," Kate shrugs. "A lot. I'll get that downstairs sooner or later."

Lanie laughs. "It's depressing as hell, Kate Beckett. I already told you that."

"I like it."

"Where you putting it? In the playroom?"

Kate groans and leans back against the wall of the cluttered extra bedroom. "Who told you that?"

Lanie moves past her to the hall and down to the next room, peeking in. "About the playroom?"

"Lanie," she mutters, scraping her hand through her hair as she follows.

"Everyone knows. I think one of you was describing the place and called it that-"

"One of us?" Kate narrows her eyes.

"Maybe it was Castle," Lanie hedges, winking at her. "You guys having kids?"

"Lanie!"

"Just asking. I mean a playroom suggests-"

"It's a sunroom."

"Sure have plenty of empty bedrooms up here." Lanie gestures to the dark rooms around them. "Where's the master?"

Kate pushes past her and towards the front of the house, hears Lanie turn to come after her. She nudges open their bedroom door, her heart catching strangely at the unmade bed, the prints still leaning against the wall, the boxes stacked crookedly in the corners.

"Oh, this is nice. This is gorgeous, Kate."

She smiles softly and turns to her friend. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You did a good job. Oh, look, that one's yours - the other one his?"

Lanie points to the huge lion print in their bedroom, still waiting to be hung, the vast African veldt behind it like they're a matching set. But they're not - one from his place, one from hers. They hung the elephant that matched the lion downstairs in the living room.

Kate nods and watches Lanie approach the far wall, her fingers running over the frame. She turns and smiles at Kate.

"You okay?" Lanie asks, gesturing towards the bedroom and then the hallway as if she means everything else as well.

"I'm good," Kate answers honestly. "I'm really good."

"Then let's go down to your party," Lanie says, hooking her arm through Kate's and leading her towards the stairs.

* * *

Castle relaxes a little when Kate comes back down with Lanie at her side; the two are smiling and Lanie laughs at something Kate murmurs to her. Alexis interrupts his vision by throwing her arms around him and kissing his cheek.

"This is fun, Dad. Thanks."

"No alcohol," he warns her again. Mostly joking. At midnight she'll have a sip of his probably, maybe even a glass, and what she does behind his back. . .

"Shut up," she says affectionately. "And thanks for letting me invite some friends."

"Of course. Your house too, pumpkin."

She gives him a look, shrugs a little, and releases him from her embrace. "Yeah."

"It is," he insists, catching her fingers as she goes to move away. "You know it is."

Alexis tilts her head and squeezes his hand, letting go. "I know. I helped pick it out. And Kate told me - a hundred times. I know."

And then she disappears back into the party.

Ryan and Jenny catch his attention and he moves for them, taking the serving tray with him - pigs in a blanket. Kate's idea. The party is a blend of their styles, just like their home, and it seems to work. The guys who made it from the 12th are all drinking the beer and eating the finger foods that Kate picked out. His groups of friends are munching his canapes, or ginger beef skewers, or oh yum, those pear and blue cheese tarts. But she was right.

It works better this way. Their way - together.

He moves past the mayor, a wincing in his chest as Weldon just shakes his head and laughs.

"Never seen pigs in a blanket at one of your parties before, Richard," he says.

"Never had Kate help me host," he says back with a shrug. "Excuse me. I see hungry police officers."

"Of course. Happy New Year."

"Same to you," he says by rote, but he realizes he truly means it. He can only hope that the man finds the next year to be more in his favor.

He stops at Jenny and Ryan, holds up the tray. "First dibs?"

"Oh, I love these," Ryan says. "Thanks, man. Want me to put them out on the table?"

"Thanks, Kev." He watches the detective barrel through the guests with the platter, Castle's hands suddenly empty, and then he feels Kate at his back, her arm sliding through his.

"Hey, there," she murmurs. "How's it going?"

He glances around at their full home, the family and friends from their intimate Christmas dinner but all the rest here now too - the mayor, his writers group, the Gotham City poker crew, her father's hunting buddies - a cascade of people in their new house.

"I think it's perfect," he says with relish and turns to meet her look.

Kate smiles at him, that deep and wide smile that makes her the most beautiful woman in the room. In the city. In-

She kisses him softly, pulls back with a smirk in her eyes. "It's pretty good for us."

* * *

He loses track of Kate with about forty-five minutes to go before midnight, but he's still got time. They've got time. He gets pulled into a discussion about the origins of _habeas corpus_ with the judge and a lawyer who apparently knows Jim, and then Jim is drawn in as well, and they're all talking about Abraham Lincoln suspending it during the Civil War, so of course Rick brings up Vampire Hunter.

Then it's a kind of free for all, and Jim is actually arguing that fantastical movies (although Castle was talking about the book, really) about historical figures have merit because it makes people want to know the real story, but the judge is unconvinced. Thoroughly. And loudly. Unconvinced.

And then it's 11:45 and Rick glances around and he still doesn't see Kate.

His heart does a funny little flip to think that, really, it doesn't even matter if they kiss at midnight because she's here. Stays here. With him. He gets to shut the door on all their guests with Kate Beckett at his side and then they'll go up the stairs to their bedroom and-

well. Do whatever. Nothing or everything or anything, doesn't matter. Because she stays. He stays. Neither of them go home because they are already home.

He's grinning like an idiot when he sees her coming down the stairs and into the living room with Jenny and Ryan behind her. Another tour? The upstairs is a wreck, and he was the one who said to ignore it and concentrate on making the downstairs as complete and finished as possible. Oops. Hope she's okay with showing people around.

He disentangles himself from the Vampire Hunter conversation and heads for Kate, gets waylaid by Alexis who kisses him on the cheek in a pre-new year celebration, and then when he lifts his head again, Kate's disappeared once more.

And now it's 11:50 and he has no idea where she is.

Doesn't matter, right? He'll get Kate later.

So Rick goes to a knot of publishing people - Gina and some of her cohorts - and makes small talk with them, makes sure they're having a good time. For some reason, Vampire Hunter has made the rounds and Gina brings up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and how book sales of the original have gone up.

And then the television gets turned on in the living room and the whole party is turning towards it to watch Times Square, people jostling to see or to get with their friends, and a ripple of laughter goes through them but they all start the countdown.

_10, 9, 8- _

It doesn't matter. He stays. Kate stays-

_5, 4, 3-_

Cool fingers around his elbow turn him around and he's facing Kate's laughing, gold-flecked eyes.

"Thought you could escape?" she murmurs and his lips are forming _one_ as hers meet his mouth in a dark kiss, wild and full of promise. Home.

* * *

Kate finds him on the couch at nearly three, his mouth open as he sleeps, head bent awkwardly against the arm of the sofa. Can't be comfortable. He was supposed to be gathering up trash, but that didn't get done, did it?

She's changed into pajamas and she's found his as well, left them upstairs for him once she gets him up and moving. Party clean-up can happen later.

She can't believe they're here. In this house. Their house. They had a fun New Year's Eve party with their friends and acquaintances, a crazy blend of both of their styles. They don't match on paper, they shouldn't fit, but they do. She bought them a _house._ What was she thinking when she saw the playroom, and the five bedrooms upstairs, and the way his face lit up when she admitted to it?

She wasn't thinking immediate and now and our family home, not really. She was thinking - oh what was she thinking?

It comes back to her as she watches him; she goes to her knees beside the couch and leans her cheek to the armrest, a breath away from his forehead. She was thinking _This man has so much love._

A man like Rick Castle needs people, family, little faces looking to him for the answers - even if they're answers he's made up. And when those kids are grown up, then he gets grandkids to spoil all over again, the little hand in his as he walks slowly through the park.

And she wants in on that.

That's all. Really. That was the extent of her thinking on the subject. She wants in.

Still.

Maybe she'll just wait for Alexis to settle down, right?

Kate closes the distance between them and kisses his forehead, then she trails down his nose to his mouth, touches her tongue to the curled corner where his smile hides. When she pulls back to look, his eyes are opening slowly.

"Time for bed," she whispers. "We'll clean up tomorrow."

"Did you say yes?" he says suddenly, widening his eyes at her and pushing up from the couch. "Was that a dream?"

She pauses, confused, a smile slipping out anyway. "A dream, I guess. Yes to what?"

Castle sits up suddenly, scraping a hand down his face. "I don't have a ring. You need a ring. I should've-"

Oh, whoa. Wait a second. She puts a staying hand on his knee even as he keeps rambling.

"I don't need a ring, big guy. Ease up. Just a dream."

He flicks her a startled, aroused look - _really? big guy does it? -_ but the interest drops off in favor of his evident disbelief, distress.

"You do need a ring. Something-"

She rises from her crouch on the floor, takes the hand he keeps scrubbing over his face. "No, Castle. It was a dream. We're fine. Now come-"

"Fine isn't good enough."

"Castle," she says sharply, wrapping her fingers around his wrist for his attention. "Wake up."

He blinks at her, tugs back as she tries to pull him up, and she shakes her head. If she's being honest, the point of the house to forestall a conversation like this. She hoped. Now maybe she sees how it only has _encouraged_ that conversation.

"Maybe you do want a ring?" Castle says hesitantly, and she honestly can't figure out if that's chagrin or hope on his face.

"Castle. I don't need a ring, because we're not close to that. You had a dream. Now come to bed."

He does at least get up, start shuffling towards the stairs. He still looks half asleep and filled with dreams - of his _proposal_ apparently - and she nudges him towards the bottom step.

"No ring. This doesn't make sense-"

"Castle, it was a dream."

"But if it wasn't a dream?"

"But it was."

"Would you?"

"No," she mutters, rolling her eyes even as she sees the playroom. _Sunroom._ Too late. They will always call it a playroom, won't they? Even if-

"No? Why-"

"Castle," she sighs and nudges his hip to get him going faster. "You can't propose to me in the middle of the night after you had a dream. Not cool. Or romantic. I'm exhausted and I want to go to bed, and the sheets are clean, and I'm in my pajamas, and everyone is finally gone, so _get moving._"

"But some time later. Right?"

"Castle."

"That's yes enough for me."

She can't help the smile that threatens, but she can roll her eyes to mask it, push him down the hall to the master bedroom. He goes easily enough after that, knocks into a stack of boxes in the corner, then flops down on his side in bed. He wriggles around to shed his jacket and then pats the spot next to him, rubs his hand up and down in sultry invitation.

With his hair spiky and his eyes already slipping shut, his dress pants and dress shirt on, it's pretty funny.

She gets in beside him, flicks at his tie, and can't help remembering the look on his face when he saw the advent calendar filled with presents back at the beginning of all of this. And while it's only been a month, they've come so far.

And now here they are.

His hand between them on the bed, Castle comes a little closer, wriggling down beside her. She reaches across them and curls her hand at his collar, loosens his tie and pulls it through, drops it over the side of the bed. She puts her fingers back at his neck, liking the warmth and the first growth of stubble. He should get his pajamas on. But he doesn't seem to notice or care.

"Are you okay with just. . .letting it be this for now?" she murmurs. Moving in together seemed like a big enough step, but this is. . .

more.

He wants more. Of course he does. He's Castle.

He blinks slowly in the darkness of their bedroom and behind him she can see the outlines of the two framed prints leaning against the far wall. A lion in black and white - from his place - and a wide empty sea of golden savannah grass - from her own place. Forlorn when alone, but a natural fit together side by side. Lanie remarked on it when she was up here, and Kate has to admit, somehow they go together. It works.

"Castle. Can we just let it be this?"

"Okay," he breathes out. "I won't ask. For now. Makes my job easier."

She gives him a smile and draws closer. "You sure?"

"You bought me a house. I think that says enough." He grins in the darkness of their room, and she can't quite get used to the shape of him against the shape of this new place; it startles her every time. "You're pretty much mine, Beckett. No one can dispute that."

She narrows her eyes at him and curls her fingers at his ear. "You can't possibly think you need to stake your claim over me, do you?"

"No, no," he agrees hastily, his eyes wide, too comical. "But I can be a possessive person, and I've been known to mark my territory-"

"If you urinate on me, I will divorce you."

He laughs hard at that, bringing a hand up to his eyes as if to dispel that image; she cracks her own smile, lets it loose.

"Got it," he laughs. "No peeing. No proposal. You've made yourself perfectly clear. Even if you did just say you'd divorce me."

She stares at him. She _did_ say divorce. She meant kick him out. . .

"Uh-huh," he murmurs, snuggling closer and drawing his arms around her. She goes, just so she can hide her face in his shoulder, smell that worn in, all-day smell of him, and she can feel him still laughing at her.

"Shut up," she growls.

"Fair warning? It'll be sooner rather than later, Beckett."

* * *

_Happy New Year!_


End file.
